Laptop + 2 SSDs in RAID 0 + strong password - an acceptable alternative to encryption?

Objective: protect the data if a laptop is stolen given that it has 2 drives in RAID 0 and it has only one user account with a very strong password? (try to avoid using BitLocker to save performance hit)

Raid controller only works for that laptop (i.e. in order to have access to that disk array you need that specific raid controller).

Given that RAID 0 splits the data across the 2 drives it's fair to say that data would not be readable by only mounting drives separately on another machine.

If the only user for that laptop has a very strong password (i.e. not breakable by brute force in a practical way), is it fair to say that the data is extremely safe from being accessed? Am I missing something?

sbrown

Posted 2016-11-03T14:32:58.883

Reputation: 3

Does BitLocker really have such a bad performance problem? I use it on my laptop and work desktop and can't say that I notice anything. I'm pretty sure the TPM module can do the encryption and decryption on the fly. – cascer1 – 2016-11-10T08:31:52.153

Answers

Booting the laptop from a CD or usb thumbdrive with a recovery environment (BartPE, etc) is just a driver load away from accessing the raid array. Also, if there's additional SATA headers, adding another HDD and installing another OS would also let them mount the disks.

SoulkeepHL

Posted 2016-11-03T14:32:58.883

Reputation: 16

Makes perfect sense. Should have thought about that. The case could be made that if the BIOS is secured to not allow such a thing (if the BIOS happens to be flexible enough) may "help" but I know what you will (rightly) say about that: getting another laptop with the same controller that doesn't have such constraints will enable a recovery environment to do the trick. Thanks again. – sbrown – 2016-11-03T15:31:44.293