14 DAY TRIAL // It would appear that Seagate is doing fairly well for itself, as its most recent press release was dedicated to celebrating its most recent success, that of having exceeded the 1 million unit shipment threshold in regards to self-encrypting HDDs.
The first time Seagate sold self-encrypting HDDs was in 2005, and it was actually the only company to supply such devices for quite a few years.
What these drives essentially do is keep all cryptographic operations and security keys on the SED itself, meaning that hacking and tampering protection is enhanced by the fact that the OS does not have a direct bearing on data security.
Indeed, it is actually strange that it took the HDD maker so long (over five years) to actually sell 1 million SEDs.
Apparently, many computer makers wanted more manufacturers to make such units before committing to them, and there was also the fact that governmental organizations need SEDs to pass certain tests before using them.
Still, little by little the flux of shipment grew, until multiple OEMs began including Seagate SEDs in their machines, like Fujitsu, IBM, LSI, Dell, Network Appliance and Hitachi.
The products are distributed across several lines, those being Constellation, Constellation ES, Momentus, Cheetahand Savvio.
“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,” he added.
Seagate is currently thinking of developing solid state drives with self-encrypting features, in addition to being determined to keep encouraging HDD sales, especially knowing that Momentus SED shipments doubled each of the past three years.