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back to article Toshiba: Our 2.5-incher does the same job as a 3.5-incher

Toshiba sees life in fast 2.5-inch drives yet, and has followed close on HGST's heels by announcing a 600GB model spinning at 15,000rpm. There are also 300GB and 450GB capacity points in this 24 x7 operation enterprise drive product set. The two drives are pretty similar. Toshiba's AL13SXB has a 15mm z-height, meaning we …

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  1. McHack

    Title: Self-encrypting?

    There is an AL13SXQ self-encrypting version.

    Post-Snowden, how does anyone trust such factory-built-in encryption? Tucked away where you can never fix a discovered problem like a deliberately-weakened algorithm.

    Or there may be a triple-secret factory master backdoor only revealed "...in matters of national security or law enforcement, with an appropriate judicially issued warrant, or upon threat of being in violation of government contracts where supplying any and all customer passwords on demand was included in the terms not publicly revealed..."

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    1. Peter2 Silver badge
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      Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

      Because for most of us, the danger is a break in and having the lot stolen by somebody who then posts data from it under our care, therefore causing major business reputation problems.

      The SAS breaking in and stealing my servers for GCHQ is not exactly a major concern. In fact, it's not mentioned on our contingency planning for some reason. Even if we were subject to the authorities demanding all of our data then once we had a court order then we'd have to comply with said court order or be locked up so encryption would seem to not offer any protection.

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      1. McHack
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        Re: Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

        Because for most of us, the danger is a break in and having the lot stolen by somebody who then posts data from it under our care, therefore causing major business reputation problems.

        Modern OS' have hard drive encryption. Says here Win 8.1 encrypts by default. Of course, Linux can encrypt too. Who needs it built into the physical HDD?

        If you're worried about the physical unit getting stolen and unencrypted data lifted from it, obviously you haven't availed yourself of the many software-based encryption solutions, including the free ones.

        And if you want self-encrypting drives as you can't be arsed into encrypting by default otherwise...

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        1. Random K
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          Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

          The real beauty of self encrypting drives is that you can reset their encryption keys and thereby effectively delete them almost instantly. It also helps with RMAs in that even after a drive no longer seems to be functioning properly you can wipe the encryption key and happily ship it back to the manufacturer (safe in the knowledge that you are still in compliance with various data protection laws). No replacement for OS level encryption if that's something you need too, but definitely a nice feature to have.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
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            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

            "Wipe the encryption key"... or so it would appear.

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        2. Nate Amsden
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          Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

          Software encryption often has a measurable overhead to performance, complexity, and risk(is it configured right, is the encryption methods supported by the software vendors etc). letting the hardware do the work automatically is simpler, faster, and safer.

          It allows those in the industries that require such things perhaps financials and stuff to just get the drives and enable encryption and forget about it. They aren't concerned about the NSA cracking their stuff it's more CYA for regulatory reasons.

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      2. h4rm0ny
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        Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

        >>"Because for most of us, the danger is a break in and having the lot stolen by somebody who then posts data from it under our care, therefore causing major business reputation problems."

        Yes, but it's valid concern nonetheless. US intelligence services passed along corporate information they'd stolen from German and French companies to US competitors in the Nineties. (I think it was Boeing, but I'm not sure). We know of that because the European companies worked it out. We don't know about the unknown unknowns. ;)

        If governments have widespread access, it's still something we want to guard against.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

          " US intelligence services passed along corporate information they'd stolen from German and French companies to US competitors in the Nineties."

          Ahem, they are doing that today. That is why in my company you shouldn't have that kind of information when you cross the us border.. even if encrypted.

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          1. h4rm0ny
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            Re: Title: Self-encrypting?

            >>"Ahem, they are doing that today. That is why in my company you shouldn't have that kind of information when you cross the us border.. even if encrypted."

            I well believe it. And then there's the Chinese. But I know some people cry conspiracy theory or just don't think anything is a problem for them until it's thrust in their face, so I wanted to reference an example that was actually documented and which caused some friction between governments.

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