McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator adds self-encrypting PC drives to its bag of security tricks
There’s a security industry axiom that says “It’s better to place the guard next to the jewels.” With McAfeee’s latest move, it looks like the information security industry is taking that to heart by bringing self-encrypting disk drives (SED) into the mainstream mix of security infrastructure elements.
Unlike software-based encryption, SED drives like Seagate’s Momentus FDE drives encrypt everything written to a drive, at the drive. This takes away potential ‘back doors’ or access points to PC data and encrypts at full speed. It makes encryption hackproof and “free” from a performance and individual PC management standpoint.
What’s been lacking are the hooks in some enterprise management tools like McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) that simplify management of self-encrypting PCs. Wave Systems, SECUDE International and others already support Momentus SED.
McAfee’s announcement makes SED an easy-to-add security tool for a much broader market. Expect rapid growth in SED as more companies place more guards next to their digital crown jewels.
Comprehensive evaluation of the top four 7200 rpm notebook drives
Tom’s Hardware compared performance notebook drives from Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung and WD with the depth and precision that only Tom’s can. The value-add here is their understanding of the complex mix of factors that interact in real-life notebook use: performance, power, durability, security.
Although we found ups and downs for each of the four products, all the drives passed the basic requirements for high-performance notebook hard drives, with great benchmark results. However, you should not just go any purchase any of the four drives, as their characteristics mean that some are more suitable for specific applications.
#4 Samsung’s Spinpoint MP2 is a good performer, delivering great throughput of up to 86 MB/s, and dominating the PCMark05 application benchmark, which is pretty relevant. Yet the drive is not a suitable overall recommendation, as its access time and I/O performance are a bit weak, and it’s as power-hungry as first-generation 7,200 RPM drives by Hitachi and Seagate. In terms of efficiency, Samsung is simply not yet where it could be.
#3 The Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 offers balanced performance and delivers good results across all benchmarks, but it does not win a single one of them except the Windows XP startup benchmark of PCMark05. If you want maximum performance or efficiency you might want to look for another drive, but if you find this model installed in your new notebook there is no reason to worry—it’s a good product.
#2 Western Digital’s new Scorpio Black has arrived with a bang. It has the fastest access time and great I/O performance, beating all the other 2.5″ hard drives. Though its throughput cannot quite match the transfer rates of the Seagate drive, WD manages to get excellent results in all of the benchmarks. And despite good but not exciting power consumption results, we found some surprises: WD implemented a sensible power management solution, which has the drive consume the least power at low-power idle and when playing DVD video off the HDD.#1 Seagate Momentus 7200.3. We were looking at the four hard drives from a mobile user’s perspective, so we paid close attention to performance per watt ratings. Not only does Seagate hit new transfer rate records, but it also beats the competition by providing the best combination of low power consumption and high performance. It might not win all the benchmarks, but overall it is on top. Its lead over WD was very small, though.
Seagate sees the importance of 7200 rpm for notebook and Tom’s sees the results in Momentus. Expect to see more of the good stuff in future versions of this winner.
The 50-year history of the disk drive is all about cramming more and more bytes on less and less real estate. The real estate shrinks when drive formats drop a size.
500GB 2.5″ drives mean we’re close to not needing the capacity advantage of 3.5″ drives. It’s the beginning of the end for the 3.5″ form factor. Servers have mostly made the switch with 2.5 SAS drives like Seagate’s Savvio.
500GB 2.5″ 7200 rpm drives mean notebooks can get desktop performance without sacrificing capacity. Expect rapid adoption of 7200 rpm vs. 5400 rpm in notebooks now that there is capacity parity and less of a premium in power consumption.
Cool, but encryption is a kindler and gentler way to retire disk drives
Blocks and Files highlighted this very physical solution to a data management problem: how to be sure sensitive data on retired disk drives never again sees the light of day. It’s a do-it-yourself version of industrial disk crushers.
Verity’s quite excited about the Hard Drive Destroyer, and I know it fills a desperate need. But it’s not very resource-efficient nor environmentally friendly. That’s a perfectly good drive! Can’t someone else use it?
The renewable alternative: self-encrypting hard drives like the Momentus FDE and BlackArmor. When it’s time to retire, throw away the AES-grade encryption key, and Poof! - what was once written will never be seen again. Certifiably so.
Momentus FDE is a notebook drive. The first enterprise FDE drive will be the Seagate Cheetah 15K . Stay tuned.
Who’s destroying drives out there? Anyone willing to admit they’re ignoring this problem and reusing drives?
In the world of press announcements, Seagate can be a tortoise at times. And while flashy “first” press releases can garner attention for other disk drive vendors, it’s when the drives are in the hands of customers that really matters.
According to Engadget, Seagate has crossed the finish line first with 320GB 7200 rpm notebook drives from Dell. The Momentus 7200.3 is a rockin’ drive, too – check it out.
Here’s a slow-motion video of the Momentus 7200 zero-G sensor in action.
Who’s using 7200 rpm in their notebook? Is it worth the extra $46?
Bonus benefit: you can instantly and thoroughly erase a drive for retiring or repurposing by simply deleting the password. One-click instant erase! Nice.
Full Disk Encryption is the elegant solution to elaborately hacked passwords
Engadget has recently raised the alarm over gaps in software-based encryption security. First, they reported that keys can be recovered from DRAM with a complex but possible process. Next, they pointed out that thumb drives could be used in a simpler variation of the technique.
Good news: you can close this gap with a hard drive with Full Disc Encryption (FDE), like the Momentus 5400 FDE.
The cryptographic key never leaves the hard drive
It’s stored on an ASIC in the hard drive with no probe points
Any attempt to remove the ASIC from the drive package locks the drive and cuts power to the chip, erasing its memory
For those serious about security, stop messing with bandaids and lock it down tight. Here’s a more detailed description of this.
Slow-motion video shows a laptop disk drive bracing for a fall
What’s the one irreplaceable piece of a notebook computer? Any data that’s not backed up. The latest in laptop data protection is a zero-G sensor that automatically parks a hard drive head whenever a laptop goes into free fall.
This is an extremely slow-motion video of an actual disk drive head being parked as the drive falls. The drive spins at 7200 rpm, which is seen here as very slow rotation. Note the bounce at the bottom!
More facts about the zero-G sensor and the G-Force Protection feature on Seagate’s Momentus 7200 drive:
It is fast enough to protect in drops as little as 7 inches
It senses in 3 axes, allowing it to “feel” head-over-heels tumbles as well as a simple vertical drop
The drive is plug-compatible with standard laptop drives, and requires no configuration to enable the feature
What’s the right storage for a rugged notebook? It depends.
CRN recently conducted a Toughest Notebook Challenge. The tests were real-world, “I can’t believe I did that” abuses to notebooks from Acer, Panasonic, Toshiba and Dell. Acer and Panasonic came out on top.
These systems all used standard-class notebook disk drives, as best I can tell. Seagate’s entries in this space are the Momentus family of drives. Toughness for storage is either built in to the drive (like our EE25 drive for extreme environments) or built around it with cases, absorbers, etc.
Which method is best for you depends upon what the notebook is meant to do. Using a standard drive frees you to offer value-add features like flash-infused hybrid technology, secure Full Disk Encryption and drop-safe Zero-G Sensor technology. Capacity will always be the highest here as well.
Rugged drives are the right solution when the application is really funky, or when the chassis-related costs of protecting a regular drive exceed the incremental cost of the rugged drive.
And do some real-world testing before you claim you’re tough enough!
