Seagate launches self-encrypting drive option for select models

by Steve Ragan - Sep 22 2009, 16:30

On Tuesday, Seagate announced the availability of self-encrypting drives as an option to their Seagate Secure line of offerings. The Seagate Secure Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) technology is available on the Savvio 15K.2, Savvio 10K.3, Constellation and Cheetah 15K.7 drives.

The idea for SED is data-at-rest security, something that many vendors offer as a separate appliance option. However, Seagate is working with Intel and LSI, who are currently shipping local key management and 6Gb/s SAS technology with TCG-based (Trusted Computing Group) security within their controllers and server solutions, to round out a hardware-based security offering for IT.

“Small to medium-sized enterprises can become more vulnerable to the risks of a data breach, a situation that can quickly become catastrophic and costly,” said David Brown, general manager of Channel Server Products at Intel.

“Using an Intel server board, such as Intel Server Board S5520HC, with a new Intel RAID Controller RS2BL080 and Seagate’s Self-Encrypting Drives, allows data-at-rest to be natively secure at the disk drives themselves. This is a smart and easy way to help ensure that intellectual property remains protected.”

Adherence to government security regulations (e.g. HIPAA) is a concern for IT managers of information-sensitive businesses (e.g. healthcare, banking, and insurance). With 50,000 drives and terabytes of data leaving organizations daily, and because 90% of the drives returned for warranty contain readable data, safe drive retirement is a key imperative for businesses worldwide, Seagate said in a statement.

Seagate said that the encryption engine matches the fill interface speed of the drive, ensuring that performance doesn’t suffer. In addition, since the cipher text is never exposed, the drive will remain inaccessible to anyone without authorization.

On CDW, using the Seagate product search, the 160GB Constellation drives will retail for about $146.00. The Savvio 15K.2 (146.8 GB) is going for $270.00, and the Savvio 10K.3 (146.8GB) is listed at $220.00. The Cheetah 15K.7 (600GB) sells for a whopping $814.00, and the Cheetah 15K.7 (300GB) sells for $463.00.

Around the Web