I mean those ones with a pin entry keypad/touchscreen built onto the device and has limits on number of attempts.
Not sure of the pros, I only see cons…
With software encryption you get updates in case vulnerabilities are discovered and such. With hardware… I guess you might get them if you think to check for them? That sounds like a pain though. Also if the algorithm used suddenly becomes obsolete because of new discoveries, you’re now left with a very expensive unsecure disk?
But I’m not very knowledgeable in encryption so I might be wrong.
SSDs can get firmware updates like anything else.
I don’t trust any of those SSDs not to have backdoors, it’s not even a hypothetical, we know that hardware encryption on SSDs have been broken in the past. In fact, I wouldn’t even be surprised if the manufacturer is just storing all the keys they bake into the SSDs, why wouldn’t they from a business perspective? At least with software encryption you can audit the code and the keys are actually generated randomly on a computer you own.
Also, if your SSD hardware fails, it could become impossible to decrypt any recovered data because the encryption keys are likely stored in the processor with no way of getting them out (and no manufacturer who is secretly storing the keys is going to blow their cover by helping you recover your data). With software encryption, you can back up your encryption keys and will be able to actually decrypt the raw data you read from the drive.
