Dell Data Encryption vs. Hard Drive Password

[goombawaho]

I'm trying to understand why anyone would bother to use something like Dell Data Encryption software vs. a simple drive password that is set in the BIOS. It is said that the drive password leaves the drive inoperable whether in the pc it came with or if it's installed or slaved into another computer. So why would anyone run processor/disk intensive software encryption that will slow down the user experience encrypting/decrypting on the fly?

I have a customer that enabled it and somehow encrypted a shared external hard drive on another computer and his laptop just goes out to lunch at times (no response) and I'm guessing it's trying to encrypt over the wire. My question is in the first paragraph. The latter is just to flesh things out.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Recovery would be one. If you forget the hdd password, there is no recovery.

 

[goombawaho]

Well, that seems like a small risk vs. having the software grinding away every day slowing your PC down. It seems like a P.O.S. especially if you encrypt a network share. Outside the local pc bus, performance is miserable. Then again, that's user error.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Don't know anything about the dell software, but pgp whole disk encryption has a very small hit to the performance. Truecrypt works pretty good also, but I was speaking as to why someone would choose one over the other.