Self-Encrypting Drives for Servers, NAS and SAN Arrays

This paper discusses the challenge of securing data on hard drives that will inevitably leave the owner's control. It introduces Self-Encrypting Drives (SED), which may be used in two ways: to provide instant secure erase (cryptographic erase or making the data no longer readable), and to enable auto-locking to secure active data if a drive is misplaced or stolen from a system while in use. Two appendices then follow: The first compares SEDs to other encryption technologies used to secure drive data. The second provides detailed analysis of instant secure erase and auto-lock SED technology, explaining how SEDs are used in servers, NAS and SAN arrays, virtualized environments, RAIDs, JBODs and discrete drives.