ASI Computer Technologies of Markham, Ontario, Canada will be the first to sell laptop computers using Seagate Technology LLC's computer hard drives with built-in encryption technology. The Scotts Valley, California-based company has included a chip that automatically encrypts all data written to the Momentus 5400 FDE (Full Disk Encryption) hard drive on the fly, rendering it unreadable without a digital key or password and allowing all data stored on it to be instantly erased. "I can't help but think that this kind of hard drive would become a standard issue on corporate laptops," said Dave Reinsel, a storage industry analyst at market research firm IDC.
Seagate says its hardware-based technology has an advantage over software-based encryption (example: Microsoft’s BitLocker, include in Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Vista), in part because it would make it impossible to even start a computer without proper authentication. The 2.5-inch 160 gigabyte-capacity hard drive is to include security management software by Wave Systems Corporation of Lee, Massachusetts, to help companies use the encryption technology. "The drive's hardware-based full disc encryption delivers significantly stronger protection against hacking and tampering than traditional encryption approaches by securely performing all cryptographic operations and key management within the drive," the world's largest maker of computer hard drives said in a written statement.
