W520 – full drive encryption ...does it work in my case?

[Sleepy664]

I wonder...

I have a W520 with HDD password in BIOS enabled. I always thought it enables full drive encryption and it appears it is working (OS doesn't see any partition on this HDD when I don't enter a password).


But now I found my HDD is a type HTS545050A7E380, which – according to HGST – doesn't come with a full drive encryption option.

So...what does that password actually do?

[RealBlackStuff]

The password itself only blocks access to the drive's contents, nothing to do with encryption.
And because that password is stored somewhere on the drive itself, putting it in another machine still requires that password.

[Sleepy664]

Oh, that is bad

Well, I was looking for additional 500 GB drive anyway...so I'll try to find a new 1TB drive with FDE...at least I'm going to keep a DVD drive that way.

[ajkula66]

Do bear in mind that FDE slows the machine down by quite a margin. I've had it on a 7200rpm drive in a W500 - straight from Lenovo - and hated it with a passion.

Unless you've got stuff that you don't want spy agencies to touch, I'd say don't bother. Various passwords are more than enough to keep your data safe.

My $0.02 only...

[Sleepy664]

I have an SSD as a main drive with FDE enabled (at least I hope so ) and it's fast enough.

How to tell if let's say WD WD10JPVX comes with FDE? I'm glad to learn it could hold up to 200 000 photos but otherwise their website isn't very helpful

[ajkula66]

I have an SSD as a main drive with FDE enabled (at least I hope so ) and it's fast enough.

Which SSD is it and what encryption are you running?

How to tell if let's say WD WD10JPVX comes with FDE?

It does not.

[Sleepy664]

Which SSD is it and what encryption are you running?

Crucial M500 mSATA, it should support AES-256. When I tried changing the encryption key it "wiped" the drive as expected so I guess it works. There shuldn't be any slow down as self encrypted drives are encrypted all the time if you set up a password or not. Password just encrypts the the encryption key (if I understand this correctly ).

Before, I have been running TrueCrypt on my PC where AES was sorted out by the CPU. It was a tiny bit slower than without the encryption but still very fast. And modern SoC drive controllers can do AES very well (on M500 there is a Marvell 88SS9187 whith comes with a dedicated AES coprocessor).

What is mostly limiting my SSD speed is that the mSATA slot is SATA-II only.

It does not.

Bummer. So HGST HTS541010A9E681 it is...