View this article at: http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/11/11/hitachi.travelstar.5k500b/

Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008 7:15am

Hitachi intros 500GB encryp...

Hitachi is releasing a new family of Travelstar 2.5-inch drives with improved security features, and reduced power use for longer battery life. The Travelstar 5K500.B line will be available in several sizes ranging from 160 to 500GB operating at 5400RPM with an 8MB cache. Hitachi says it expects the 5K500.B will be the first hard drive line to comply with the new Storage Security specification being finalized by the Trusted Security Group. The optional Bulk Data Encryption feature encrypts data as it is written to the drive and reverses this as information is retrieved, preventing casual data theft online.

The TCG standard likewise uses pre-boot authentication, making it easier for administrators to monitor the security of laptops connected to a network.

The Travelstar line has the lowest read/write power specification in the industry with no significant performance penalty, according to Larry Swezey, Hitachi's Director of Consumer and Commercial HDD. He says the 3GB/s SATA drives have an average seek time of 12ms with a read/write power specification of 1.4 watts. The company says the "eco-friendly" drives are also halogen-free to reduce pollution.

The 5K500.B will be shipping worldwide beginning next month in its various sizes. A heavy duty version for servers and routers will be released early next year. Pricing has not yet been released.