What SSDs support ATA password protection, regardless of implementing FDE? Which SSD?

[VirtualLarry]

I realize that ATA password without FDE is kind of pointless, I mean, they could just open up the SSD and read out the NAND then, and rebuild what was on it, but short of someone physically dissecting your SSD, are there any that support ATA password protection?

I was thinking of finally getting an SSD, for a laptop. Thinking of maybe a 96GB kingston V+100 drive ($139 at Newegg), or a 128GB Crucial M4 ($180-ish?). OS would probably be Win7 64-bit.

 

[StarTech]

I think the problem may be more on the BIOS of the system than the drive itself. All the IBM thinkpads/Lenovo machines have allowed me to do so. in fact the company I work for will send a redflag emal to management if a drive is not password protected. I have been running an Intel 160 for a year or more.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, the BIOS in this MSI laptop seems not to have a HD password option. How strange.
Surely anyone with a laptop that travels, would want to protect their data in case the laptop was stolen.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Bitlocker or other disk-based encryption might do the job for you? I don't know the details on how the newer drives with encryption support interact with those types of systems, but it seems worth looking into if you haven't.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Bitlocker or other disk-based encryption might do the job for you? I don't know the details on how the newer drives with encryption support interact with those types of systems, but it seems worth looking into if you haven't.

The problem with BitLocker, and TrueCrypt FDE, is that there is a "bootloader hole" in the encryption. Which can be attacked and trojaned. If the BIOS supports ATA password, there is no storage to access at all until the password is supplied. Granted, the BIOS could also be trojaned, but that is harder to do, as the BIOS would have to store the stolen password somewhere, so it would either have to re-write a flash block in the BIOS (are there any spare area in modern BIOSes?), or store it in CMOS. Probably easier to trojan the newer UEFI BIOSes, as they are designed to be modular and extensible.