Seagate's self-encrypting hard drive is 'œMomentus'!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 13 November 2008 07:39

Opinion and Analysis

Seagate says its drives are simple for consumers to use, especially those 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”.

All they need to do is upgrade (or buy) 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 boot-up delays, no system slowdowns – and the BIOS automatically authenticates the user for transparent security.”

As for organisation that require “high strength authentication and a simple way to meet state and federal consumer-privacy laws”, naturally Seagate says the Momentus FDE HD can be “deployed in notebook fleets to enable secure disposal and repurposing of drives and notebooks; security audits; password escrow; pre-boot authentication in the form of biometrics, passwords and smart cards; and simple centralised management.”

Now shipping is the Momentus 5400 FDE.3 hard drive with capacities of 320GB and 160GB and 8MBs of cache, as is Momentus 7200 FDE, Seagate’s first high-performance (7200 RPM) self-encrypting notebook drive, with capacities of 320GB and 160GB and a 16MBcache. 

No prices are noted as yet.

Seagate’s says its Momentus 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM self-encrypting hard drives in capacities up to 500GB are scheduled to begin shipping early next year.

Basic techs specs are that 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.

For more information, visit Seagate’s website.