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    AW17r4: Can you set HDD Password on an NVMe drive?

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by CountingCrows, May 7, 2017.

  1. CountingCrows

    CountingCrows Notebook Geek

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    AW17r3 BIOS did not support setting HDD Password to enable hardware-encryption of the NVMe SSDs.

    Is there any improvements here? Can you set the hard disk password on NVMe drives on R4?

    My interest on hardware encryption of the drive is because I get about 1 hour more battery life than software FDE (Tested Truecrypt, Bitlocker, etc vs SEDs).

    [Note: NVMe should be the only drive in your system. If there is any SATA drive, your BIOS will be able to do HardDisk password to enable Class 0 / ATA Sec encryption, but in reality, it will not set it on NVMe! ]

    [Note2: This thread is strictly about enabling hardware encryption on NVMe drives. This thread is NOT about software encryption, it is not about TGC/Opal, it is not about NVMe drive performance. Please do not clutter it with unrelated posts.]
     
    CountingCrows, May 7, 2017
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  2. CountingCrows

    CountingCrows Notebook Geek

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    Confirmed: It still is not possible with Alienware BIOS.

    I was too naïve to think an important feature like this would be implemented in this overpriced $4K gamer shyt.

    Some of us use these for long battery life and non-chicklet keyboard features. But almost everyone could benefit from SED feature of NVMe drives.
     
    CountingCrows, May 11, 2017
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    Vasudev likes this.