Seagate's self-encrypting hard drives powers new Dell notebooks 10 November, 2008 By Liam Lahey

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Dell, the first major computer maker to offer laptops with secure Seagate's drives, is now shipping the first self-encrypting laptop with 320GB of capacity and true desktop performance; and McAfee is set to provide software for the enterprise-wide management of laptops with Seagate security.

Lost or stolen laptops can cost companies millions of dollars in compromised trade secrets and intellectual property and threaten consumers with the high cost of identity theft, yet many of the computers remain unprotected. According to the FBI, a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds and 97 percent are never recovered.

The new Momentus FDE laptop drives, 5400- and 7200-rpm models with capacities up to a half-terabyte, deliver powerful protection against unauthorized access to information on lost or stolen laptop 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 laptop computers, critical customer data on field sales and customer support laptop PCs, and sensitive information on personal laptops.

"Delivering ironclad, easy-to-use laptop 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 McAfee to simplify security management for our customers and providing Dell with the world's fastest self-encrypting hard drive for its newest Latitude computers."

"There are now 44 states in the U.S. that have some sort of data encryption legislation in place, meaning if you do have a leak or a data breach and you haven't protected that data you have to report it now," added Joni Clark, product marketing manager, PC business unit, Seagate. "This solution puts together all the pieces for small and medium-sized companies and large companies or OEMs and system integrators can deliver these very easily."

Dell recently introduced new its next generation Latitude product line with industry-leading performance, advanced security, all-day battery life and anytime wireless capabilities to meet the needs of road warriors and IT professionals alike. The new Seagate Momentus 7200 FDE drive is available on several of the new E-family products, delivering high performance drive speeds to the selection of encryption drives already shipping. Using factory-installed Embassy Suite software from Wave Systems Corp or third-party software from Dell's Software and Peripherals group, Dell customers can easily deploy and manage FDE drives with the necessary controls for ensuring compliance with data protection statutes.

"Dell customers have been eagerly awaiting these higher performance encryption drives," said Jim Middleton, director of marketing for the Corporate Business Group, at Dell, in a statement. "Seagate is a key partner in Dell's efforts to secure sensitive computer information and has enabled us to deliver easy-to-use, simple-to-manage self-encrypting laptops that provide powerful security for customer information."

McAfee joins a growing list of security software providers -- including SECUDE International, Wave Systems and WinMagic Data Security -- that are teaming with Seagate to secure laptop 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 laptop 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 to our customers."

Through McAfee ePO, organizations worldwide will leverage Seagate Momentus FDE hard drives in heterogeneous environments to secure laptop information. IT security personnel will enforce policy management globally, enable token authentication and end-user password recovery, and allow organizations to prove that a missing laptop was encrypted at the time it was lost or stolen.

"We're on our third generation of self-encrypting drives today," Clark said. "We're rounding the corner of this becoming a full-scale solution. The reason for that is we've continued to work with partners out there. Now we've got folks like McAfee . . . they've got 60 million seats out there and their ePO software . . . can manage our solution as just as easily as software encryption."

Seagate Secure drives are simple and easy for consumers and organizations to use, officials said. 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 could still easily deploy a laptop with a Momentus FDE hard drive, which installs as easily as a traditional drive. After installation, the user sets the BIOS password, 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.

For organizations requiring the strongest authentication and a simple way to comply with state and federal consumer-privacy laws, Momentus FDE -- the industry's first hard drive with built-in encryption -- could be deployed in laptop fleets to enable secure disposal and repurposing of drives and laptops; security audits; password escrow; pre-boot authentication in the form of biometrics, passwords and smart cards; and simple centralized management.

Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.4 hard drive, the 5400-RPM model, is available in 500GB, 320GB, 160GB, 120GB and 80MB capacities with an 8MB cache. Momentus 7200 FDE, the 7200-RPM drive, is offered in 500GB, 250GB, 200GB, 160GB, 120GB and 80GB capacities with a 16MB cache. Both drives feature a fast Serial ATA interface and AES encryption, a government-grade security protocol used to encrypt all hard drive information transparently and automatically.

Momentus 5400.4 FDE is now shipping to distributors, resellers and system integrators worldwide, with distribution channel shipments of Momentus 7200 FDE expected to follow in the first quarter of 2009. Momentus 7200 FDE 320GB is now shipping to Dell and other major OEMs, officials added.