Fujitsu, a maker of hard disk drives (HDDs) and a variety of electronics, this week announced its new hard drive that features full encryption with 256-bit AES key, something never before seen in consumer class of devices. Besides, the new product sports high performance and capacity.

Fujitsu MHZ2 CJ-series of hard disk drives in 2.5” form-factor offer 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 250GB as well as 320GB capacities and are designed for Serial ATA-150/300 interface. The HDDs sport 7200rpm motor, 16MB cache and declare average read seek time of 10.5ms and average write seek time of 12.5ms.

The main feature of the Fujitsu MHZ2 CJ family of hard disk drives is 256-bit AES encryption. The drives implement the AES hardware encryption directly into the processor chip of the hard disk drive, resulting in more robust security and faster system performance than software-based encryption. Even though Fujitsu is not the first to introduce AES-encrypted HDDs, competing solutions from companies like Seagate Technologies offer 128-bit long keys.

The built-in AES automatically encrypts all data when storing it on the hard disk drive and decrypts the data when read. All data stored on the hard disk drive can be erased instantly, in less than a second, using the advanced secure erase feature that erases the key itself.

The new hard drives from Fujitsu will be useful for public institutions and companies that handle large amounts of personal and other confidential data, this dramatically lowers the time and cost involved in wiping clean the hard drives of computers that are disposed of or reused.

While fully-encrypted hard disk drives substantially lower one’s ability to access the data without permission even when personal computer itself is stolen, the PC should still be vigorously protected against attacks from the Internet which ultimate goal may be stealing or corrupting data.