Self-Encrypting Drives For Servers, NAS, And SAN Arrays

By Seagate Technology LLC

This paper discusses the challenge of securing data on hard drives that will inevitably leave the owner's control. It introduces Self-Encrypting Drives (SED), which may be used in two ways: to provide instant secure erase (cryptographic erase or making the data no longer readable), and to enable auto-locking to secure active data if a drive is misplaced or stolen from a system while in use. Two appendices then follow: The first compares SEDs to other encryption technologies used to secure drive data. The second provides detailed analysis of instant secure erase and auto-lock SED technology, explaining how SEDs are used in servers, NAS and SAN arrays, virtualized environments, RAIDs, JBODs and discrete drives.