[Tripredacus]

The 2.5-inch MK6461GSYG drives will be available in capacities ranging from 160GB to 640GB and are not only destined for enterprise notebooks and mini-PCs, but could also end up in copiers, printers, and point-of-sale systems. The inclusion of the latest version of Wipe Technology allows users to have hardware encryption keys invalidated, or all data automatically erased when the drive's power supply is turned off or when connected to an unauthorized system.

Self-encrypting drives have done much to help lock down important files, but Toshiba has gone a step further by developing a technology that securely erases data rather than let it fall into unauthorized hands.

Source: Gizmag

[TerryFox]

And how is this a good thing ? I mean not only can are PC get infected but now if these hardwares have a hard drive they as well can get infected

[5eraph]

I think you're missing the point, TerryFox. The mentioned devices often already have hard drives; infection is not the issue.

However, I do think that a self-wiping hard drive defeats the purpose of having storage in copiers and printers. Said storage is not accessible to the users anyway, which begs the questions: Why do these devices store information? Who has access to the information?

[jaclaz]

@Trip
Next time your laptop motherboard fails and you have important data on the "smart" new technology Toshiba drive that you CANNOT connect to anothe PC (as it will self-destroy it's data) you will change opinion on the diection in which the step has been taken.

@5eraph
Generally speaking these devices are "high end" corporate aimed ones, generally used also as Corporate Fax machines and usually store *what* was printed or sent on a per-user basis, are often connected to accounting software (so that prints are charged to the user/project) and allow for logs, reports statitics and what not.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

jaclaz, on 21 April 2011 - 07:57 AM, said:

@Trip
Next time your laptop motherboard fails and you have important data on the "smart" new technology Toshiba drive that you CANNOT connect to anothe PC (as it will self-destroy it's data) you will change opinion on the diection in which the step has been taken.

Yeah I couldn't really care about these HDDs myself. Its a new initative I'm trying to get started where News posts on the frontpage link back to topics actually on the forum.

I can definately see uses for this type of drive, but not personally. Definately for those paranoid types...

[bizzybody]

Hard drive have had a secure erase feature for years. A password can be set which has to be entered to access the drive. There's a built in back door which allows the password to be removed, but it triggers the built in secure erase feature.

There's a free program available to download as a bootable ISO for CD-R or a floppy disk image - it checks for a password and if the drive doesn't have one it sets one then does the remove password function to trigger the secure erase. It meets the security criteria for US government and military data destruction.

Toshiba's drives would make it extremely difficult or impossible to recover data from a drive when the system or device its connected to fails. Either component level repair would have to be done or the components providing the security match information would have to be un-soldered and installed in a working system. Sounds like an even bigger money maker for data recovery businesses. It'd also make it harder for law enforcement to recover incriminating photocopies or FAXes from machines that use these drives as a data cache.