While having the data encrypt and decrypt automatically on a hard drive is neat, it isn't really all that useful on its own since the hard drive will automatically decrypt the data on request. This act is called a number of different names depending on the manufacturer, although it is most often referred to as doing a "Secure Erase".
So if you need to quickly and securely wipe a drive before either redeployment or disposal, SEDs offer a quick and very secure way to do so. All you need to do is tell the SED to generate a new DEK and all the data on the drive immediately becomes gibberish (since the key needed to decrypt the data no longer exists) and is effectively unretrievable. One neat trick that can be done based on this is to almost instantly and completely wipe a hard drive. This means that all the data on the drive is encrypted at all times.
This article was originally published on the Puget blog. Guest author Matt Bach is the head of Puget Labs and has been part of Puget Systems, a boutique builder of gaming and workstation PCs, since the early days working in various subsets of production.
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