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    Alienware 17 R4 NVMe Encryption question

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by Spartan@HIDevolution, May 8, 2017.

  1. Spartan@HIDevolution

    Spartan@HIDevolution Company Representative

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    A friend of mine asking is there an option in the BIOS on the Alienware 17 R4 to enable NVMe SSD Encryption. He mentioned something about ATA-Password which I have no clue what he's talking about.

    Can you AW 17 R4 owners please check if you have such option in the BIOS provided you have an NVMe SSD which I'm sure most of you do?

    Thanks

    @iunlock
     
  2. Vasudev

    Vasudev Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    OEM NVMe drives doesn't offer encryption but EVO and PRO can use encryption using BitLocker ( W10 Pro) or Samsung Magician.
     
  3. CountingCrows

    CountingCrows Notebook Geek

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    ATA Security Encryption is not the same as Bitlocker eDrive / TCG-OPal (Samsung Magician), etc.

    It is Hardware Encryption of the drive (SED). All SSDs are encrypted at rest but key is kept in the clear. BIOS passes the password to unscramble the key (once it has been scrambled by ATA Sec 0). It is a very elegant solution without the complexities of TCG/Opal.

    ATA and NVM are different protocols. So NVM support must be built in BIOS. Lenovo laptops do that for example. I don't expect bottom-of-IT-barrel gamer laptops like Alienware to have anything to do with encryption. Why to waste time with encryption when probably only 1 in 10K of your users knows the diff between "bit" and "byte", let alone need encryption. AW17r3 BIOS did not have NVM encryption support.

    ATA Sec has been around 20 years and it was not available on my AW18 purchased in 2015! They finally put this in AW17r3 (late 2015).

    SM961 has encryption option (I am assuming this is referring to TCG/Opal). Even though SM951 says it does not have encryption, this must be referring to TCG/Opal. Whether it is 951 or 961, both should support SED feature if BIOS can do it. I remember in Lenovo forums 256GB SM951 NVMe was used with hardware encryption. The mechanics have not changed much and data is encrypted at rest in both. Just the key is cleartext.

    Someone has who has R4 and an NVMe drive, should remove all the other drives from the system and see if he/she can set the HDD Password option in BIOS for the NVMe drive.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2017
    Vasudev likes this.