Lat E6410, disk encryption with Samsung SSD?

Hi, I have a Latitude E6410 with a Samsung 830 SSD as the system disk. In a while I may be working on a project that's confidential, and using the laptop as a workstation in that regard. This is not a super-secret affair but encrypting the disk is probably worthwhile just in case.

Anyway, I had a Vertex 2 for a while, and when I set a BIOS password on the laptop it was unreadable on other computers unless the password was entered (this caused me some headache until I remembered I'd set a password).

Is this actually encryption of the disk? Can I rely on this level of security to prevent trivial data theft (i.e. popping the disk in another computer and reading data)?

 

I'm not sure if that actually encrypts the drive (someone else will know the answer I'm sure). However, the E6410 has a TPM module so you should be able to set up BitLocker to encrypt the drive (if you happen to be running an appropriate version of Windows).

 

Yes, I may have to get my school to supply me with a 7 Enterprise license and then do BitLocker. I have activated the internal password now, according to the BIOS description it is persistent to the disk, and prevents reading on other computers.
So I suspect this *will* be secure enough, but I'm concerned about the difficulty of finding official documentation on this.

It apparently also supports secure erase and reset by a Dell issued key, if you choose to enable this.

 

Hard drive passwords are very easy to bypass and would only deter the laziest of thieves.. There are a variety of tools (google it) that make it very simple to do and even without such tools a simple swap of the HD control board will allow the password to be bypassed. The most secure option is encrypting the data on the drive IMHO.