Hitachi announced on Tuesday the third generation of its 2.5-inch Travelstar hard drive with built-in encryption, the 5K500.B.
The TravelStar 5K500.B is a 5400rpm, Sata II hard drive that comes in capacities ranging from 120GB to 500GB, and is designed for notebook PCs, external storage, gaming consoles, plus other mobile and enterprise applications.
The new hard drive comes in a few versions. The version for notebooks focuses on low power consumption, while the one used for enterprise has Hitachi's Enhanced Availability technology that lets the drive operate 24 hours a day at high-speed.
According to Hitachi, the new drive features a halogen-free design, consumes less energy, and is more eco-friendly than other drives of the same type.
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The Travelstar 5K500.B also features optional hard-drive-level Bulk Data Encryption. The 'optional' notation means customers need to ask for the data-encryption feature to be turned on at the manufacturer. This is because, according to Hitachi, in some markets — such as China or Russia — special permits are required to buy or use hard drives with built-in encryption.
With BDE, the data is scrambled using a key, as it is written to the disk and then descrambled with the key when it is retrieved, giving users transparent protection. It also helps simplify the drive-redeployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for the time-consuming data-wiping process.
The new TravelStar 5K500.B drive is slated to be available in December. It is unclear how much the drive will cost.
