Upcoming Toshiba 2.5-inch HDD can self-encrypt and erase

While other hard drive manufacturers concentrate on releasing higher capacity drives, Toshiba is looking to improve security for all that sensitive data instead.

The Japanese-based Corporation this week has announced its MKxx61GSYG Series of 2.5-inch HDDs. The lineup will be unique for its data protection and security features, including “built-in hardware data encryption, and wipe technology.” According to Toshiba, the hard drive will be able to “wipe” or deny certain data if access credentials cannot be verified, such as if the disk was removed from its original computer. The supplementary defense features and AES-256 hardware encryption should ease potential owners if their personal computers were to be stolen or lost.

Outside of security, the new 2.5-inch hard drive series will still be quite speedy, including a 7200RPM rotation speed and an average seek time of 12ms. Capacities range from 160GB up to 640GB, with a transfer rate of 3 Gb/sec throughout all models.

Unfortunately, Toshiba has yet to reveal prices and launch dates for the protective notebook HDDs. However, it is entirely possible that Toshiba laptops later this year could begin shipping with the new drives.

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