This is great news. I wonder which other manufacturers will use them. If Dell were to launch a new powerhorse Inspiron with such a drive and add in biometrics like some others I would buy one instantly.

Seagate aren't on my list of trusted manufacturers. Being cynical, I'm inclined to suggest that they've devised a new way to loose data!

It doesn't explicitly say so in the article, but this drive would need bios support. Has a standard protocol for encrypted drives emerged yet?

Kaled.

Has a standard protocol for encrypted drives emerged yet?

Well, the article says they're using 128-bit AES encryption. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) was adopted as a US government standard. AES is a popular encryption algorithm, but there are a number of others they could use I guess.

The things I'd be concerned about would be data recovery and the potential hardware problems that might render your disk inoperable, and thereby unrecoverable. For instance, I doubt the hardware data recovery firms would have much luck reviving a disk like this. Laptop drives seem to fail more often than my desktop drives, so that would be an issue.

It's nice to know that if you lose your laptop that your data wouldn't be falling into the wrong hands. However, there are still concerns that you could lose data under normal operating conditions. I guess a comprehensive backup routine will still be priority.

Data recovery would be straightforward, you'd just need the right drive electronics (which is true for any drive).

The type of encryption (AES) is unimportant from a bios perspective. The problem is that the bios must recognise that it has an encrypted drive, prompt the user for a password, and forward the password to the drive for validation/rejection.

Kaled.

I wonder what the MTBFP will be for the average user (mean time before password forgotten ;o)

Data recovery would be straightforward, you'd just need the right drive electronics (which is true for any drive).

Thanks for clearing that up.
If the encryption wouldn't interfere with the hardware recovery process then that would be a plus.

I wonder what the MTBFP will be for the average user

Practice makes perfect. ;) You'd have to enter your password every time you turn the device on.

I wonder what the MTBFP will be for the average user (mean time before password forgotten ;o)

A bigger problem would be to get them to use proper passwords, rather than very simple ones.

Native drive encrytion for laptops is not new. UK armed forces have had it for a while (now 2-3 years maybe), i don't know who built the hard-drives but an external contractor mods the hard-drives which then encrypt/decrypt the data on the fly from the hard-drive, authentication is usually done via usb dongle/similiar, and the passwords are determined for us to prevent muppets using thier birthdays.
The only problems i have had is when the laptop is unplugged and left to drain its battery and then go into hibernate. For some reason windows or the disk doesn't like it and has a paddy, though never lost any data from it.