No ATA password support on Maximus VI Formula?

[zaichk]

Looked through the BIOS and manual for a way to set master and user ATA password on my Samsung 540 Pro... didn't find anything. How in the world can this feature be missing when most SSDs today support built-in encryption?

[HiVizMan]

For SSD encryption you have to use third party software by the way.

[zaichk]

What third party software? I'm not talking about things like TrueCrypt. The drive does its own encryption in hardware, which is always enabled. However, if the key isn't protected with an ATA password, then the encryption is useless. The only way to set this password is through BIOS.

[HiVizMan]

Actually not by the way. Yes the encryption is hardware but it is managed and enabled via software.

Have read here mate.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6891/hardware-accelerated-bitlocker-encryption-microsoft-windows-8-edr...

[zaichk]

The M500 is the first drive that I’m aware of to support Microsoft’s eDrive standard.

I've read that article when it was first published and it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. It deals with BitLocker, which used to be software-only, but now supports hardware encryption for devices that comply with the eDrive standard. I wouldn't use BitLocker even if the Samsung 840 Pro was supported.

The hardware encryption that I'm talking about is OS-independent. It doesn't require any third party software. It needs the BIOS to prompt the user for the password and to send that password to the drive via an ATA command:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA#HDD_passwords_and_security

[HiVizMan]

TPM (Trusted Platform module) is that not what you are talking about? But not something on the ROG boards no. Many notebooks and laptops have that module built in, it is mainly used for commercial driven hardware. You can buy the module separate and if your board has the TPM connection available use it. I know that some of the ASUS channel boards do have provision for the fitting of a TPM module.

[zaichk]

No, this has nothing to do with TPM. And Maximus VI Formula does have the TPM header.

The ATA Password function has been around for decades and supported on just about every motherboard I've ever owned. On the old mechanical drives it was fairly easy to bypass. On SSDs with hardware encryption it is used to protect the encryption key. BIOS support is the only thing that's needed. How it can be missing on a $300+ motherboard is beyond me.

[Praz]

ATA password enabled encryption is mainly geared toward laptop/enterprise usage. Even Samsung refers to their SSD encryption as a mobile or IT implementation (link below). So it is not surprising that this is not included on an enthusiast motherboard.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/download/06_Protect_Your_Pr...

[zaichk]

It's extremely surprising, considering just how old this feature is and how little effort it would have been to include it. Drives like the 840 Pro and M500 are not targeted at enterprises. Laptops - sure, and I have another 840 Pro in my Lenovo X230 which allows me to provide the ATA password at boot time.

Who are the people running TrueCrypt for the past 9 years? Most of them are desktop users. Now that we finally have drives that can be encrypted without running extra software or taking a 30% IO performance hit, ASUS decides that this feature isn't really needed?!? You can't be serious.

[Classic_GOD]

zaichk wrote:
Who are the people running TrueCrypt for the past 9 years? Most of them are desktop users. Now that we finally have drives that can be encrypted without running extra software or taking a 30% IO performance hit, ASUS decides that this feature isn't really needed?!? You can't be serious.

ATA Password is easy to brake. You can purchase tools that will leave the data intact and unlock the drive in minutes.
TrueCrypt uses hardware AES encryption of your CPU (most if not all Haswell CPUs have hardware AES-NI support) which afaik is faster than the one on the drive controller.