What this means is that the DSP chip on the drive that handles reads and writes to the drive has extra horsepower that was going unused, so Seagate figured out how to make use of it... good for them!
This kind of stuff has been out for years ... didn't Dell start doing this in 2001?
My respect for Seagate increases daily. Not only are they prepping 7200 RPM laptop HDs, but they're the only company to offer 5 year warranties on their products.
What's depressing, though, is that the security situation has gotten so bad that manufacturers are having to come up with hardware solutions. While I appreciate the help, what's stopping, say, Intel from deciding (with the "help" of the RIAA) that my mp3 collection is a vast storage of undesirable files, and implementing a hardware solution to lock them out?
It won't work. People will carve the key into the cover of the laptop so they don't forget it.
A lot of lost or stolen ATM cards have the pin number written on them.