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Is it possible to use hardware-based full disk encryption (perhaps on a Samsung 840 Pro SSD) on a Mac, specifically a Macbook Pro 8,2? If so, how?

My understanding is that this will be handled in the BIOS or possibly EFI, however I think Apple's EFI is generally quite locked down.

I'm not looking for any software-based solutions such as FileVault 2 or TrueCrypt. I dual boot and matters will be simpler if it is handled in hardware.

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While I understand that a hardware-based encryption is preferable if possible, I want to question your motivation: The disk encryption of the various hardware vendors seems poorly documented. Little information is provided but necessary to aim for confidentiality of the implementation. FileVault 2 on the other hand is currently undergoing a FIPS 140-2 certification [1] - a NIST standard for cryptographic modules. – gentmatt Jan 21 at 14:36
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In my personal experience, software-based full disk encryption in a dual boot setup with Windows 7 is no problem if I only encrypt the OS X startup volume with FileVault 2 (this is my current setup). If you also want to encrypt your Windows or Linux volume, things get messy - so I've heard but not tested for myself. – gentmatt Jan 21 at 14:40
Well, I'm actually using Ubuntu primarily with OSX on the side. Also I have a shared partition, though perhaps that could be handled with TrueCrypt. It just seems like less trouble and will require fewer pieces of software if I can just have a single password on boot. – Marsh Jan 21 at 15:13
Have you used Filevault 2 along with Ubuntu's full disk encryption? Did that work well? I'm just curious because I want to ditch my Windows partition for Ubuntu 12.04. – gentmatt Jan 21 at 15:42
No, sorry I haven't tried it. I don't think it would be a problem so long as you don't want to read one partition while booted to the other. I would expect maybe you could get around that by using TrueCrypt for both. I've used TrueCrypt a little, not an expert though – Marsh Jan 21 at 17:54
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This is a good question and - yes - finding an answer to it is almost impossible. Samsung sends to Apple support. I would expect to hear from Apple that it's not possible.

Full disk encryption HW vs FileVault - difference in performance is noticeable. If you are not business user on strict encryption requirements, then we need to look for HW based Samsung solution. But how to enable it on Mac - pain to find out.

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With recent CPUs, FileVault2 uses hardware AES, and has a negligible impact on performance according to some reports: osxdaily.com/2011/08/10/… – Alan Shutko Feb 26 at 21:54
We're not really average users. I prefer to use HW FDE because it's the elegant and "correct" solution, particularly when dual booting with a shared partition. – Marsh Mar 5 at 13:12

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