Seagate Ships 1 Million Self-Encrypting Hard Drives

Looks like Seagate hit a milestone this week, as the company topped the 1 million mark in shipments of self-encrypting hard drives for laptops and data center servers. Particularly as it relates to security and hard drives, reliability and security are two of the biggest, most important factors. When it comes to security in particular, there's just no better way to ensure that things are locked down tight than to grab a self-encrypting drive. It looks like more and more people are getting the message judging by these sales figures.

There's also little doubt that sales to businesses and government entities have really helped Seagate out here. More and more of the company's drives are getting government certification, and more and more OEMs are offering these drives to consumers. It's difficult to sell direct to end users, but when laptop makers start to offer these drives, it's much easier to get in front of your potential customers. Kudos to Seagate, and even more kudos to consumers for realizing just how important security is when it comes to your digital life.

Seagate Tops 1 Million Mark in Shipments of Self-Encrypting Hard Drives for Laptop PC’s and Data Center Servers

Customer adoption swells as more computer makers ship systems powered by Seagate® SEDs, Seagate’s security alliances grow, and more SEDs win key government certification
RSA Conference 2011

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) today announced that it has shipped more than 1 million self-encrypting laptop and enterprise hard drives. Sales of the Seagate® hard drives with built-in encryption continue to surge as more computer makers offer the drives to protect against unauthorized access to sensitive data, more independent software vendors team up with Seagate to provide the management capabilities required for company-wide installations of self-encrypting laptop PCs, and more of the drives win U.S. government certifications:

    * Six original equipment manufacturers – Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, LSI and Network Appliance – now offer products powered by Seagate enterprise self-encrypting drives (SEDs). All told, Seagate now ships 24 products in a family of enterprise drives that includes Savvio®, Cheetah®, Constellation® ES and Constellation® SEDs.
    * Dell, Lenovo and Panasonic are shipping or qualifying standard-sized or thin laptops with Seagate Momentus® and Momentus® Thin SEDs as optional features.
    * Seagate’s independent software vendor (ISV) partnerships have grown to include security leaders Credant, McAfee, Mobile Armor, Secude, Softex, Symantec, Wave Systems and WinMagic. With management software from these providers, organizations can easily and affordably manage and protect encryption keys and passwords to simplify deployments of Momentus and Momentus Thin SEDs.
    * Seagate’s family of Savvio, Cheetah, Constellation and Momentus SEDs have secured FIPS 140-2 certification from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This key government certification clears the way for deployments of Seagate self-encrypting drives by all U.S. and Canadian federal agencies, many state and local governments, and regulated industries such as healthcare, finance and defense required to use FIPS-certified gear to help protect sensitive data on PCs and computer networks and in data centers. The Seagate laptop and enterprise hard drives are the first with native encryption to earn the FIPS certification.

    * Dell and Panasonic now offer laptops featuring FIPS-certified Momentus SEDs.
    * Several major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are now qualifying Momentus SEDs that are compliant with the Trusted Computing Group’s Opal specification. The Trusted Computing Group, an international body that promotes open standards for computer security, issued the Opal specification in 2009. The specification is focused on enabling the ecosystem for self-encrypting drives and increasing their adoption.
    * Seagate enterprise SED shipments have tripled over the past two quarters, while the company’s laptop SED shipments have doubled in each of the past three years.

“Companies and government organizations worldwide increasingly are securing confidential information on self-encrypting hard drives, recognizing that this commonsense yet powerful approach simplifies the deployment of security for data at rest,” said Charles Kolodgy, research director of security products for analyst group IDC. “As storage and security continue to converge, solutions like Seagate’s self-encrypting hard drives are leading the way by providing organizations with the strong, easy-to-use security they need to protect their data assets.”

Seagate® Enterprise Self-Encrypting Drives Deliver Government-Grade Security

Seagate offers a full lineup of enterprise SED options within its Savvio, Cheetah, and Constellation families. Strong enough for national security, yet easy enough for the one-person IT department, Seagate enterprise SEDs simplify decommissioning and preserve hardware value for returns and repurposing by eliminating the need to overwrite or physically destroy the drive, securing warranty and expired lease returns, and enabling drives to be repurposed securely.

Laptop Lockdown with Momentus® Self-Encrypting Drives

Momentus® SEDs give organizations of all sizes a simple, cost-effective way to protect against unauthorized access to data on notebook PCs and a powerful tool for complying with the growing number of data privacy laws calling for the protection of consumer information using government-grade encryption. The AES encryption chip in the Momentus SEDs automatically and transparently encrypts all drive data, not just selected files or partitions. The 2.5-inch drive also eliminates disk initialization and configuration required by encryption software, allows IT administrators to instantly erase all data cryptographically so the drive can be quickly and easily redeployed, and delivers full inline-speed encryption with no impact to system performance.

Momentus SEDs keep all security keys and cryptographic operations within the drive, separating them from the operating system to provide greater protection against hacking and tampering than traditional software alternatives, which can give thieves backdoor access to encryption keys and are otherwise more vulnerable to key theft. Momentus SEDs are offered in capacities up to 500GB.

Seagate at RSA Conference

See Seagate® SEDs in demonstrations at the following booths of Seagate’s ISV partners at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, site of this year’s RSA Conference:

    * Softex – #750
    * Wave Systems – #939
    * WinMagic – #839

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