The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Performance with an SSD and whole disk encryption

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by exi, Mar 12, 2011.

  1. exi

    exi Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    46
    Messages:
    657
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My current machine is a 2009 MBP, C2D @ 2.53 GHz, 4 GB, and -- the worst part -- a 5400 rpm hard drive. I use PGP WDE to fully encrypt said hard drive, as I prefer that approach to the current container approach taken by FileVault. I am aware that FV under 10.7 is expected to be a WDE approach, similar to MS's Bitlocker.

    I'm wanting to upgrade to an SSD given that that's my current bottleneck, and I can purchase a new Crucial C300 SSD, 256 GB, for about $405 shipped. I formerly had an SSD in a Vaio Z, and I miss that "seat of the pants" increase in performance.

    My question is this: given the performance hit under PGP WDE, even in 10.1.1, do you think that it's worth the cost to go from an encrypted 5400 rpm drive to a close-to-top-shelf SSD? Things like this -- http://anthonyvance.com/blog/security/ssd_encryption/ -- make me see it both ways.
     
    exi, Mar 12, 2011
    #1
  2. altecxp

    altecxp Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    10
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    31
    the 10.7 whole disk encryption on my MacBook Pro using a OWC SSD cut the read/write speed of my SSD in 1/2.
     
    altecxp, Mar 14, 2011
    #2
  3. Zaroff

    Zaroff Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Have you also checked what it does to battery life? Since the CPU has to work to decode/encode every file access, I would suppose it shall decrease it in not so small proportions...
     
    Zaroff, Mar 14, 2011
    #3
  4. exi

    exi Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    46
    Messages:
    657
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Ouch. That's about on par with PGP, best I can tell. Do you suppose FileVault (10.6 version) has the same penalty? I have an SSD coming.
     
    exi, Mar 14, 2011
    #4