Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series 240GB Encrypted SSD Review

The Solid-State Drive Pro 2500 family offers the performance of typical SATA-based SSDs, but hopes to stand out to business buyers with its encryption and management capabilities. 

The SSD Pro 2500 drives offer 256-bit AES hardware encryption to reduce the performance hit software encryption can produce. To further secure data on corporate machines, they also support Trusted Computing Group's OPAL 2.0 standard and Microsoft's eDrive. The new drives also can be remotely managed by IT staff thanks to Intel's vPro technology as well as the Intel SSD Pro Administrator Tool, allowing monitoring of drive health and tracking of data.  

The SSD Pro Administrator Tool 

The SSD Pro Administrator Tool is a simple command line utility for IT administrators that is provided with the Pro 2500. The main function of the tool is to provide IT administrators with a way to perform a PSID revert in case the encryption key is lost. The PSID is a 32-character code that is printed on back of the SSD and basically, without the PSID and the PSID revert tool, the SSD would be a brick in case the encryption key is lost. Obiously all the data in the drive will be lost but the drive itself can be repurposed. 

Another feature in the tool is for enabling eDrive. By default, the eDrive support is not enabled (i.e. listed as 'False') but enabling it only requires a single command. The command will not actually enable the eDrive BitLocker encryption but will rather just make the drive "eDrive ready" as Intel calls it. To enable hardware accelerated BitLocker encryption, you will have to do the same steps as with any other eDrive capable drive. Intel told me that the reason behind eDrive support being disabled by default is that during the Windows install process, BitLocker encryption will automatically be enabled if the drive and the rest of the platform support eDrive (like many corporate laptops do). As many businesses use third party encryption software, having BitLocker encryption on by default would just slow down the initial install process, so Intel decided to disable eDrive and have an option to enable it if needed.