Seagate hypes laptop with built-in data lock

Seagate Technology has named the first manufacturer to sell laptops with its new built-in hard drive encryption technology.

ASI Computer Technologies will start selling computers equipped with Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 drive next month, Seagate said in a statement. The computers, called ASI C8015, will be sold through a number of ASI's partners, including Newegg.com, PowerNotebooks.com and ZipZoomfly.com, an ASI representative said.

The Seagate drives are equipped with the company's new "DriveTrust" technology, which the company promotes as a simpler way to safeguard data stored on laptops. The encryption technology is designed to make life tougher for computer thieves and to prevent embarrassing breaches.

In addition to an 80GB Seagate drive, the ASI machine will feature a fingerprint reader, 15.4-inch display, Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.0GHz processor, Nvidia graphics with 256MB memory, 1GB RAM and a DVD rewritable drive, according to ASI. The price is expected to be about $2,150.

ASI is a small player among laptop makers. It ships "whitebook" computers that don't carry a name brand and are sold by resellers who sometimes put their own names on the hardware.

Seagate is also in discussions with major, brand-name laptop makers and expects to announce more deals for its new hard drive by the middle of the year. A spokesman said: "We will obviously be selling this to worldwide resellers."

Seagate pitches its encrypting hard disk as an alternative to full-disk encryption software, such as products sold by PGP and PointSec Mobile Technologies. Additionally, high-end editions of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system include an encryption feature called BitLocker.

The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 offers up to 160GB of capacity, a Serial ATA interface, and hardware-based Advanced Encryption Standard encryption, according to Seagate. ASI will ship its laptop with Wave Systems' management software to simplify enterprise use of the computers, it said.

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com