Hard-Disk Drives Get Cryptic

For the first time in many years, hard-disk drives, or HDDs, will start to gain a significant new capability--hardware-based encryption.

Not surprisingly, the first encrypted drives will make their debut on notebook computers, where they are needed the most. Encrypting a drive's contents will render them inaccessible if the system is stolen.

While entire drives can be encrypted with software-based tools, there are performance implications--not to mention cost and complexity issues.

Seagate says it will be the first to release an HDD with built-in encryption (via an embedded microprocessor by an unnamed supplier), the Momentus 5400 FDE.2.

"What we are talking about is embedding security within the drive itself," says Scott Shimomura, a senior marketing manager at Seagate. "It's a whole new way of looking at a hard drive from an end-user perspective."

Seagate's 2.5-inch drive initially will be available in a 160-GB configuration, but not until the first or second quarter of next year. The SATA-based drives will support throughput of 1.5 GBps and will have AES 128-bit native encryption.

While Seagate earns bragging rights as the first to launch an HDD with built-in encryption, officials at Hitachi are quick to point out that its rival only announced one drive in a single form-factor. Hitachi says it, too, will release drives with built-in encryption but it is waiting to have all its ducks lined up before making a splash.

Larry Swezey, Hitachi's director of mobile HDD product strategy, wants to roll out encryption on a broader number of drives next year but is not committing to a time frame. Swezey says that while Seagate chose to announce a drive in one segment, with its Momentus 80-GB-per-platter, 5,400-RPM 2.5-inch drives, Hitachi plans to offer encryption as an option on its 100-GB-per-platter, 7,200-RPM drives and its 120-GB-per-platter, 5,400-RPM drives.

"We're trying to bring multiple technologies to market together at the same time," Swezey says. "We will have a lot better coverage, allowing customers to say which platforms they want security enabled on, and [be free] to go up and down the range."

Also, the drives will support a flash component. Swezey says for now it looks like it will be in the range of 256 MB, which will allow OEMs to take advantage of new features in Windows Vista, allowing for faster retrieval of key data and/or bootup.

Meanwhile, it's not clear how quickly encrypted drives will take off. Toshiba's storage-device division is among those that believe technical standards must be firmed up to avoid compatibility issues among different drive vendors and suppliers of PCs. As such, it is waiting for the Trusted Computing Group to agree upon a standard. When all is said and done, drives with built-in encryption will probably be a 2008 story, says Maciek Brzeski, Toshiba's vice president of storage-device marketing.

"Some of our competitors are getting first products out conceptually," he says. "But in the long term, we need to have some real solid industry standards so that HP, Dell or Toshiba can multisource drives for their laptops and they will operate in the same way."