Drive encryption

I'm wondering how to encrypt the drive on my new 13. It has a Samsung m.2 drive and running Win8.1. This is my first Win8.1 machine and I thought 8.1 had drive encryption built in, but I'm not seeing the settings the Microsoft help page was trying to direct me to.

I know for Samsung EVO SSDs, you can encrypt the drive by setting a hard drive password in BIOS, but I don't know if that is also the case for Samsung M.2s.

Are there any built-in ways to encrypt the drive or do I need to buy something or upgrade to Win8.1 Pro?

 

I believe it can only be done with a 3rd party app.

 

Here are a few articles I was reading about this same thing. I don't have mine yet to be more specific, but I hope this gives you some direction.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...f-device/6ce052e1-862c-4f51-bfd7-055fb0712157

and this one

http://www.idganswers.com/question/14192/how-to-encrypt-windows-8-1-drive

 

Apparently I fall under the "If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption." category. Bah. I foolishly assumed that this brand-spanking-new computer would meet the requirements. This was one of the reasons I bought a new machine in the first place. Guess I should have done a better job researching.
I might have to think about returning the 13 for one does meet these requirements. :/

 

Truecrypt was used to be best and safest. Not long ago NSA shut down their servers and forced them to end development. You should think about downloading version 7.1a and using it. There are plenty of tutorials how to encrypt a drive using truecypt on the web.

As far as I know new Samsung drivers (post 830) supports hardware encryption. 830 series suport software encryption but it also works just bandwith is about 30MB/s slower than normal. Im using Samsung 830 128GB series encrypted in Truecrypt in my Alienware.

 

At a minimum, yes you need win 8.1 Pro edition; otherwise the option does not appear.

 

Yeah, also NSA has backdoor in bitlocker if you mind. Truecrypt is still undecryptable even for government

 

I've used Rohos Disk Encryption ( http://www.rohos.com ) on my both my Win7 desktops and a Win7 laptop, with good results. It creates a hidden partition that is password protected. The partition size is user adjustable and the encryption is decent.

They also have other products like facial recognition logon and USB drive logon. Their products are reasonably priced but their interface is dated and a little confusing at first.

 

Yes not all drives do support hardware encryption, even modern lower end ones don't.

 

You have to know that hardware encryption isn't a must if you want to encrypt your system. I have SSD without hardware encryption and after full Truecrypt encryption it just has 30 MB/s slower read and write. If you compare it to 440 MB/s that it has it's nothing.