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Perpendicular magnetic recording technology, hybrid hard drives with NAND flash memory, and now fully encryptable hard drives for the notebook

Today has been a shining moment for Seagate Technology as it announced a barrage of products including its version of a hybrid hard disk drive for notebooks which Microsoft's upcoming Vista operating system will utilize with certain technologies. We reported on another technology regarding hard disk security a while back and Seagate has finally officially announced its Momentus 5400 FDE hard disk drive.

The Momentus 5400 FDE, or Full Disk Encryption, drive is a 2.5-inch notebook drive which packs in a hardware encryption algorithm for on-the-fly protection of data without any user intervention during the reading and writing process.

FDE works like this: The drive is packaged and ready to allow the user to enter a password, or up to 5 if used by multiple users, which allows access to the disk in a laptop. The user will only need to enter the password once during the boot process to "open" the disk's contents. From that point on encryption is seemless and completely transparent.

Among the features are:
  • Highest level of data protection (AES 128-bit encryption) for data at rest
  • Encryption speed that matches the throughput of the drive interface to preserve system performance
  • Superior system performance and battery life to software-based disc encryption
  • Quick erase, or scrubbing, of drives that are repurposed or retired
  • Preboot authentication gives users secure access to their notebook data
  • Full Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support for local cryptographic key backup and archive, providing key management capabilities for individual users to large organizations
Additional information can be found on the Momentus 5400 FDE product sheet (PDF).

During our interview with Momentus FDE's Product Marketing Manager, Joni Clark, we picked up a handful of interesting details including the fact that there may be support for 3rd party software to allow greater flexibility and additional capabilities regarding the security features of the Momentus FDE technology. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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TPM
By FooFighta on 6/7/2006 1:37:23 PM , Rating: 2
Fully encryptable Hard Drives are awesome, but at what expense? The drive is compatible with TPM, if the government wanted to get into your drive that was "fully encrypted" they could without even cracking the aes128.
Oh noes!
I know the tpm chips are on mobo's, now compatibility with the hard drive. The last step for TCPA will be the OS, Vista is the critical enabler for TCPA, get ready to give up your rights when you fork out the money for it. Read up more on http://www.againsttcpa.com/.




RE: TPM
By michal1980 on 6/7/06, Rating: -1
RE: TPM
By FooFighta on 6/7/2006 2:15:58 PM , Rating: 2
Nvidia, other companies?? What are you talking about. What does viral marketing have to do with the realization that the freedom that you enjoy with your PC is being swept out from under your feet? I suggest you click that above link and read a bit for yourself before you make statements like that.


RE: TPM
By DRavisher on 6/7/2006 2:26:46 PM , Rating: 2
Is it really true that the encryption has an intentional back-door through TPM? The article should really have mentioned that, since that kind of makes it useless if you really want security. Damn shame if it's true, 128bit on-the-fly AES encryption would be pretty sweet (not that I feel a need for it).


RE: TPM
By FooFighta on 6/7/2006 2:34:22 PM , Rating: 3
If you check out the site http://www.againsttcpa.com it is feasible that there will be a master key to the system that will be provided to governments that will unlock a system. The whole concept is pretty 1984ish. Revocable word documents (you email someone a .doc, he sends it to someone else, and you can delete it off that other person's computer (if you have rights)) imagine the powers of a oppresionist goverment, there are many more applications.


RE: TPM
By TomZ on 6/7/2006 2:36:36 PM , Rating: 2
I don't know about TPM in general, but the idea that Microsoft is building in a "back door" in Vista has been pretty well debunked:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/17/vista_back...

http://blogs.msdn.com/si_team/archive/2006/03/02/5...


RE: TPM
By FooFighta on 6/7/2006 2:47:18 PM , Rating: 2
I never said anything about a backdoor to the OS, I mentioned a backdoor to your data. Read the Register article again, it does mention the whole stopping the information leakage from companies as a feature of TPM. Enron would not have been prosecuted if it wasn't for info leaking. Engadget wouldn't get any inside hardware info even.. haha. It will give the CIO/CEO (whoever has enough rights) the right to delete an article from someone else's computer....


Good feature but...
By Hare on 6/7/2006 2:35:12 PM , Rating: 2
Let's see if this feature will cost extra. If it does I'll happily use my open source truecrypt with more advanced encryption methods. No backdoors either.




RE:Truecrypt rocks
By R3MF on 6/7/2006 3:29:16 PM , Rating: 2
been using it for ages.


RE:Truecrypt rocks
By Hare on 6/7/2006 3:59:33 PM , Rating: 2
Ditto... This would be more transparent though.


RE: Good feature but...
By DRavisher on 6/7/2006 6:37:06 PM , Rating: 2
But does TrueCrypt give the same kind of performance as this harddrive (my understanding is that this drive does it on-the-fly with no performance hit)?

On a side note, is the download on truecrypt.org working for you guys? I have been trying to download it for days now, but it doesn't work with download managers, FireFox or IE...


RE: Good feature but...
By armagedon on 6/7/2006 10:23:03 PM , Rating: 2
it works fine and super fast. (Firefox)
http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php


not an Alzeimer friendly device !
By armagedon on 6/7/2006 1:33:14 PM , Rating: 2
there has to be a "passthrough" if someone forget the pw or if the owner dies unexpectedly, so does all it's data.
Damned, his will was on that drive !!




By patentman on 6/7/2006 4:13:10 PM , Rating: 2
In most states, a will is not valid unless it is written, meaning that it has to be printed out. But you have point....


Uhhh....
By segagenesis on 6/7/2006 1:35:42 PM , Rating: 2
What was that story a month ago where a guy with disk based encryption was bypassed by the company? I cant remember if it was software based or not...

Unfortunately a passphrase system is only as strong as what you put into it. Pray nobody uses something stupid as thier passphrase with this.




RE: Uhhh....
By xKelemvor on 6/8/2006 12:33:19 PM , Rating: 2
It was an HP thing I think. Feds (or someone) got access to get evidence against the guy. Don't remember if it was CHild Porn or what...


Probably Future Standard
By TomZ on 6/7/2006 1:28:52 PM , Rating: 2
I would guess that drives like these, that support built-in encryption, will become the standard in the future. I would think that companies and governments would be highly motivated to use this type of technology.




Hybrid desktop hard drives?
By Bonrock on 6/7/2006 2:13:45 PM , Rating: 2
Are any of the major hard drive companies planning to make a hybrid desktop hard drive? I understand why they're pursuing the mobile market first, due to the improved battery life brought on by hybrid hard drives, but the better performance and faster boot times would be nice to have on a desktop too. Has anyone heard anything about this?




Full Disc Encryption News Archive:
By saqib on 6/7/2006 4:39:50 PM , Rating: 2
"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

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