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Can Your Computer Keep a Secret 'Data Protection Methods are NOT Created Equal, we discussed the pros and cons of each of these options and showed their relative level of security, with encryption being the most secure approach by far. In the second article, Can Your Computer Keep a Secret" Software Solutions for Encrypting Data at Rest, we focused on encryption, and took a close look at using software to encrypt the data on your hard disk. In this article, we will focus on a hardware approach for encrypting your data at rest. Specifically, we are going to look at the new breed of encrypting hard drives. We will discuss the features and benefits of this next generation solution, and show why this hardware based approach to encryption is so effective.


Why encrypt within the disk drive?
The ability to encrypt data on hard disks has been around for a long time. Although juvenile by today'[TM]s standards, applications that encrypt specific sets of data were emerging in the early 80'[TM]s, and software drivers that encrypt everything as it is being written to the hard disk started appearing in 1987. However, it'[TM]s only recently that disk drives have evolved to perform hardware-based encryption within the drive itself. So far, only two of the major hard disk manufacturers, Seagate and Hitachi, have produced encrypting hard drives, but other manufacturers are sure to follow suit. Seagate is leading the market, and announced the industry'[TM]s first encrypting hard disk in fall of 2006. Hitachi entered the encrypting hard disk market several months later.