Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), a developer of small form factor hard disk drives, has introduced a 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch (6.4cm) Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) that provides government-grade AES-256 hardware encryption incorporated in the disk drive’s controller electronics.
The new drive MKxx61GSYD is designed for commercial notebooks and security-sensitive applications, including shared desktop PCs, and comes with a built-in hardware encryption, the company said.
Based on the Opal Security Subsystem Class (Opal SSC) specification from the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), the new Toshiba SED enables secure deployment of encryption on notebook and desktop PCs to protect confidential information.
SEDs designed to the Opal SSC specification provide advanced access authentication and built-in hardware data encryption that organisations cost-effectively protect data from theft or unauthorised access, while easing the administrative burdens associated with re-purposing, or retiring client systems and data storage.
The MKxx61GSYD provides AES-256 encryption, built into the drive’s electronics hardware; enables the deployment of applications, and user data at full I/O speeds; and is compatible with third party security management applications for notebook and other client PCs.
The MKxx61GSYD can be deployed into any managed security environment supporting the industry standard Opal SSC specification, as the SED security features are transparent to applications and operating systems, the company said.
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The Toshiba MKxx61GSYD model also provides features to support secure, role-based pre-boot access authentication, such as that employed by security management ISVs in their client security, enterprise client administration, and single-sign-on frameworks.
The MKxx61GSYD has built-in hardware encryption that helps eliminate the expenses associated with software encryption licenses, and also eliminates the need to escrow media encryption keys, reducing the complexity of key management, the company said.
Toshiba claims that the SED technology helps IT departments to achieve strong, cost-effective security without interrupting business flow or impacting application performance.
Toshiba Europe Storage Device Division vice president Martin Larsson said the MKxx61GSYD helps businesses to protect their data assets by utilising the Opal SCC specification, a global standard which is broadly supported by leading security solutions providers.
Larsson said, "The MKxx61GSYD can be deployed and managed in the same way as existing software encryption solutions for client PCs."
