Hardware Encrypted Hard Drive

[x942]

I am looking into getting a hardware encrypted hard drive. The issue I am having though is finding one that is trusted (i.e no backdoors) and one that will work with my HP Pavillion G6. I know the bios has to support the HDD (sadly).

Does anyone know of any good hard drives that are hardware encrypted? The best I can find is toshiba. Am I better just buying another ironkey? Or even just a normal hard drive and using TrueCrypt or PGP on it?

[parsec]

Best option truecrypt "free" with variety of ciphers to go...
I know some SSD's do have/support hardware encryption.

EDIT: http://www.jack-brennan.com/?p=1666

[Technical]

TrueCrypt can encrypt full hard disks with safety.

[noone_particular]

My problem with using hardware encrypted hard drives as opposed to using hard drive encryption software is verification. I don't fully understand how hardware encryption is implemented, but it seems to me that there will be a lot more to audit than there would be with encryption software. Then there's the question of whether those with the ability to perform such an audit will have access to the source code (and access to the code used in the hardware itself to verify that they are the same) and whatever else is necessary to thoroughly evaluate it. If I understand this correctly, hardware encryption will require BIOS (or UEFI) support, which means that code will also need to be audited.

On paper, hardware encryption looks good, if it can all be independently verified. Without the means to verify every part of its implementation, it would be next to impossible to be certain that it wasn't backdoored. Considering where most of this hardware is made, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it was.

[xxJackxx]

Originally Posted by noone_particular

...Without the means to verify every part of its implementation, it would be next to impossible to be certain that it wasn't backdoored. Considering where most of this hardware is made, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it was.

My thoughts exactly. TrueCrypt would be my first choice.

[Technical]

In fact, proprietary technology need to be trusted without any check of existing backdoors.
TrueCrypt allows the code to be tested by anyone (with proper knowledge).

[x942]

I see the answer here :p TrueCrypt/PGP on a normal drive it is! Maybe ISO will come up with a standard for HardWare encrypted drives that way all of them can be tested.


Thanks for the help!

[Searching_ _ _]

I think the majority of built in encryption for HDD's is aimed at corporate users.
Like Seagate's Enterprise drives with the designation ES, I think. Expect higher prices for less space.

For example in Hitachi drives:
Self Encrypting Drives

If you keep an eye here > hxxp://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=HDD
You may find what you are interested in. Not too long ago they had an Ultrastar 7k3000, which is on the list of SED's.