Enabling Hardware Encryption for Crucial NVMe® SSDs

Windows® eDrive® support is required for hardware encryption of SSDs via BitLocker®, and this is not supported by Crucial’s NVMe self-encrypting drive (SED) model lines. In addition, hardware encryption is no longer used by default by BitLocker. As a result, when BitLocker is enabled on Crucial NVMe SEDs it will utilize software encryption (as opposed to the SED's hardware features) to provide disk encryption.

In order to make use of hardware encryption on Crucial NVMe SEDs within the Windows operating system, third-party software is required to enable a non-BitLocker solution which supports hardware encryption. While we are not able to test and provide direct support of third-party solutions, Crucial NVMe SEDs support TCG Opal 2.01, AES256 encryption, and Secure Boot. Third-party tools which support these standards can be used with the Crucial NVMe SED lines to enable hardware encryption when used as directed by the providers of these tools.