Seagate Technology says it's adding a self-encrypting capability to its Cheetah 15K disk drive based on a specification promulgated by the Trusted Computing Group.

The TCG Storage Architecture Core Specification 1.0 defines a way that storage system drives will recognize encryption and decryption security commands and authorization requests, says Gianna DaGiau, senior product marketing manager.

The self-encrypting functionality will be added to the Seagate Cheetah 15K drives by this northern summer, she says.

"The drive will be encrypting data coming to it," DaGiau says. "The encryption key is inside the drive and never leaves it. It will require an authentication key for decryption." The type of encryption supported in the Seagate self-encrypting process is the Advanced Encryption Standard.

The reason that supporting the TCG specification is important is that "a storage system is likely to have dual sources, not just Seagate necessarily," and system managers will benefit from having a common way to use the self-encrypting process, she says.