Laptops Now Protected by Full Disk Encryption

A stolen laptop can mean a lot of heartache for a business person. Not only is their computer gone, but potentially damaging corporate and personal information is now available to the thief. For some time now businesses have been using encryption technology to protect email being sent between employees, and software encryption to protect files on computers. Now Samsung is shipping a hard drive that will make it simple to encrypt everything on a laptop, greatly increasing the security of mobile computing. Now mobile business professionals can use the Self-Encrypting Solid-State Disk (SSD) drive.

An SSD stores persistent data in much the same way that a traditional hard drive does, and the interface is identical to the user making replacing an older drive fairly painless. The primary difference is in how the drive operates "behind the scenes". A traditional hard drive spins as it accesses information for a user. This of course uses power, generates heat, and causes metal fatigue over time to the drive. Solid-state disk drives have no moving parts and in many ways operate like flash drives or a huge stick of RAM. This makes SSDs sturdier, quieter, and faster as hard drive latency is removed for the most part.

This new style of hard drive is made available with full disk encryption (FDE). FDE is a term used to identify that every file on a disk is encrypted, including programs and OS partitions. This means that the information on the laptop is essentially useless to anyone without the key, or the ability to break the encryption. It is unlikely that the typical laptop thief will have the means or the time to break encryption that is currently available.

Jim Elliot, Samsung’s vice president of memory systems, said, "Samsung has combined the tremendous performance advantages of solid-state technology with integrated hardware encryption for drives designed especially for today's 'road warrior' professionals. Business users now get the best of performance and security in a single drive."

Dell Inc has already announced a suit of laptops to be made available in the upcoming months that use this new hard drive technology. These drives come in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB models and all will have full disk encryption native to the device. Although pricing is not yet announced, Dell is known for their ability to make quality Cheap Laptops.

Hardware encryption the likes of which is available in these new Samsung drives has its advantages over traditional software encryption technologies. A prime example is the fact that the key that unlocks the encryption is stored within the hardware and is never exposed by programs or the operating system. Faster performance and the fact that the encryption is always on are also recognized benefits.

With Dell’s adoption of the new SSD encrypted drive it is likely that the product will very soon be made available to businesses and consumers at a reasonable price. With the Netbook craze running all over the laptop market these new drives may offer the distinction necessary to increase ever plummeting prices and bring some margin back to the laptops. These SSD’s are more than perceived value; they are what many require to truly secure their data.

Cheap Laptops