SN850 / SEDs and BIOS HDD password

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
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I have the SN850 SSD, which is not self encrypting.

Does anyone know what setting the BIOS HDD password means in the context of the SN850?

My assumption is it will set an ATA password on the drive, meaning the drive contents can no be accessed if it is moved to a new device without the password.

However as the contents are not encrypted, someone with the correct tools could in theory bypass the password or access the physical storage directly (e.g. a forensic analyst, but not your everyday person).

For a self encrypting drive, I’m guessing the BIOS password will behave the same, except the contents are now also encrypted.
However, I’m guessing something like sedutils is still needed to actually change the encryption key?

I’m debating returning the SN850 and purchasing a SED instead, but maybe the BIOS HDD password is enough for my risk model.
I know I can just use LUKS (which I am currently using) but I would prefer to hand off the overhead to the hardware if possible.

Looks like Samsung 980 Pro is the closest competitor to the SN850, but it is self encrypting. Has anyone had any luck using it with sedutils?

2

I wonder how much has changed since then (2019):
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8835339

2 Likes
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Ya, I don’t have huge amounts of confidence in manufactures HW encryption implementations.

For one thing it’s a bit of a closed box so difficult to really audit what is happening on the drive.

For my risk model it is probably more than enough, unless an easily exploitable vulnerability is released.

I have much more confidence in LUKS, but it’s nice to hand off the work to the HW.