Seagate Ships Self-encrypting Laptop, PC HDDs

SHARON%7E1.WEB/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" />Seagate is now shipping its self-encrypting notebook PC hard drives, with up to 320 GB of capacity, to the worldwide distribution channel, with 500 GB models coming soon.


McAfee is set to provide software for the enterprise-wide management of notebooks with Seagate Secure hard drives.

The new Momentus FDE (full-disk encryption) notebook hard drives, 5400- and 7200-rpm models with capacities of up to a half-terabyte, deliver protection to help guard against unauthorized access to information on lost or stolen notebook computers. Part of the Seagate Secure family of self-encrypting drives, the Momentus FDE drives feature government-grade encryption that delivers powerful security for confidential customer or corporate information on executive notebook computers, critical customer data on field sales and customer support notebook PCs, and sensitive information on personal notebooks. "Delivering easy-to-use notebook security that also is cost-effective requires leading partnerships and technologies," said Tom Major, vice president of the Personal Compute Business Unit at Seagate. "Seagate is pleased to be teaming with industry leaders to simplify security management for our customers and providing our OEM and channel customers with the world's fastest self-encrypting hard drive."

McAfee joins a growing list of security software providers – including SECUDE International, Wave Systems and WinMagic Data Security – that are teaming with Seagate to help secure notebook PCs. McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator management system and McAfee's endpoint encryption client will integrate with Seagate Momentus FDE hard drives to use the embedded hardware encryption, giving customers full, user-rich features and the total enterprise management required to secure notebook computers in heterogeneous environments.

"McAfee provides leading enterprise-class, powerful encryption and strong access control technologies," said Tony Jennings, vice president Strategic Partnerships at McAfee. "By teaming with Seagate on its new encrypting Momentus drive, we are extending additional protection tools to our customers."

Seagate Secure hard drives are simple and easy for consumers to use. Individual computer users who are not subject to corporate policies and regulatory compliance, don't need multi-user encryption management and want to protect personal and other sensitive information, can easily deploy a notebook with a Momentus FDE hard drive, which installs as easily as a traditional drive. Once installed, the user simply enters a BIOS password, then logs on as usual, and the security is in place. The hardware-based encryption engine delivers security without the overhead – no bootup delays, no system slowdowns – and the BIOS automatically authenticates the user for transparent security.

Now shipping is the Momentus 5400 FDE.3 hard drive with capacities of 320 GB and 160 GB and 8MBs of cache, as is Momentus 7200 FDE, Seagate's first high-performance (7200 RPM) self-encrypting notebook drive, with capacities of 320 GB and 160 GB and a 16MBcache. Seagate's Momentus 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM self-encrypting hard drives in capacities up to 500GB are scheduled to begin shipping early next year.

All Momentus FDE drives feature a fast Serial ATA interface and built-in AES encryption, an AES government-grade encryption used to encrypt all hard drive information transparently and automatically.