Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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SanForce SSD's - Data extraction possible?

January 27th, 2011, 3:47

Most of the SSD's on the market today are based off of the SandForce controllers. These controllers employ AES-128 or 256 encryption for all data stored on each flash chip, even if no password was ever set by the user.

Does anyone know if each SSD has a unique AES key? Is the key encrypted (perhaps with the ATA password)? Can it theoretically be extracted from the processor with enough reverse-engineering technology at one's disposal?

Are there any real-world or theoretical ways to recover one of these SSD's if the ATA password is lost but otherwise in good working condition? (EG. Reset/disable ATA password)

Re: SanForce SSD's - Data extraction possible?

January 27th, 2011, 10:21

Demus wrote:Does anyone know if each SSD has a unique AES key?

Yes
Demus wrote: Is the key encrypted (perhaps with the ATA password)? Can it theoretically be extracted from the processor with enough reverse-engineering technology at one's disposal?

Yes, if you can get boot code which loads system area from flash
Firmware updates also encrypted and stored encrypted inside a drive
Demus wrote:Are there any real-world or theoretical ways to recover one of these SSD's if the ATA password is lost but otherwise in good working condition? (EG. Reset/disable ATA password)

Not yet
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