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Encryption and Performance

EricaV

EricaV

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 20, 2008
140
5
I have a mid 2012 classic MBP and I'm thinking about using file vault to encrypt the MBP and my external Time machine drive.

Sorry if this is a stupid question. But the last time I encrypted a laptop it took "years" to boot up and shut down and it seemed to slow other things down. Granted, this was 10 years ago on a PC and the IT guy at the university I was working for installed the encryption program.


Should I just get over it and set up encryption ? I just don't want to sacrifice performance or create any inconveniences other than having to enter an extra password.

Any feedback appreciated !
Erica
 
EricaV said:
I have a mid 2012 classic MBP and I'm thinking about using file vault to encrypt the MBP and my external Time machine drive.

Sorry if this is a stupid question. But the last time I encrypted a laptop it took "years" to boot up and shut down and it seemed to slow other things down. Granted, this was 10 years ago on a PC and the IT guy at the university I was working for installed the encryption program.


Should I just get over it and set up encryption ? I just don't want to sacrifice performance or create any inconveniences other than having to enter an extra password.

Any feedback appreciated !
Erica
Click to expand...

I have the same laptop as you, though I put an SSD in mine. I recently enabled FileVault on it, and all my Mac's, and I have seen no performance hit, except a very slight delay when logging in after a reboot.

Once you start it going, it encrypts in the background and you can continue to use the computer normally. It may take hours on a hard drive, but it's not that big a deal and you can even shut down in the middle of it and it will pick back up when you log on again.

You don't need an extra password either as it uses your OS X logon credentials to decrypt it.
 
I recently enabled filevault on my 2014 MacBook Air and haven't noticed any difference in performance. My air has the 256GB SSD in it though and I'm not sure how big of a difference that makes.
 
I didn't like the FileVault 2 because it makes the Guest account totally unusable. Since I have Undercover installed plus firmware protection, the theft will probably sell it for parts before even playing with it.
 
There's an obvious performance hit to FV2, but as others mentioned, its minor and as time goes on you won't even notice it.

I think the peace of mind for protecting your data surpasses the small performance penalty incurred imo
 
Thanks for feedback- and time machine question

Appreciate it. Since by law I should have my laptop encrypted I think I'll suck it up and use file vault. I suspect it will slow things a bit more than those of you who have SDD. But I would be in a world of hurt if this thing ever got lost or stolen unencrypted.

I assume all comments above apply to encrypting time machine too ?

Thanks again.
 
EricaV said:
Appreciate it. Since by law I should have my laptop encrypted I think I'll suck it up and use file vault. I suspect it will slow things a bit more than those of you who have SDD. But I would be in a world of hurt if this thing ever got lost or stolen unencrypted.

I assume all comments above apply to encrypting time machine too ?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

For Time Machine, just go into the System Preferences options for it and check the box to encrypt backups and that's all you need to do.
 
EricaV said:
Appreciate it. Since by law I should have my laptop encrypted I think I'll suck it up and use file vault. I suspect it will slow things a bit more than those of you who have SDD. But I would be in a world of hurt if this thing ever got lost or stolen unencrypted.

I assume all comments above apply to encrypting time machine too ?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You can also use TrueCrypt. The project has ended because [put your conspiration theory here because it WILL make sense]. It seems to be the safest available alternative and it doesn't require system-wide encryption.

The OSX alternative is by using encrypted sparsebundles. It's good enough if you're not doing any kind of criminal activity and you don't mind sharing your industrial secrets with NSA. I've adopted this option for keeping my professional stuff away from common thieves.
 
brdeveloper said:
You can also use TrueCrypt. The project has ended because [put your conspiration theory here because it WILL make sense]. It seems to be the safest available alternative and it doesn't require system-wide encryption.

The OSX alternative is by using encrypted sparsebundles. It's good enough if you're not doing any kind of criminal activity and you don't mind sharing your industrial secrets with NSA. I've adopted this option for keeping my professional stuff away from common thieves.
Click to expand...

TrueCrypt is great too. I also use it on my thumb drives and one external hard drive as well.
 
brdeveloper said:
You can also use TrueCrypt. The project has ended because
Click to expand...
The only thing that worries me, if its ended, then it will just sit there without any improvements. I hate relying on apps that will not be updated, especially for something as sensitive as encryption. Or am I misunderstanding your post.
 
maflynn said:
The only thing that worries me, if its ended, then it will just sit there without any improvements. I hate relying on apps that will not be updated, especially for something as sensitive as encryption. Or am I misunderstanding your post.
Click to expand...

No, you're right. But, when development ended in May this year, there were no updates or bugs to be fixed since 2012. See security expert Steve Gibson's take on the whole TrueCrypt thing here.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
For Time Machine, just go into the System Preferences options for it and check the box to encrypt backups and that's all you need to do.
Click to expand...
When I setup Time Machine for my macbook I did this and it took 1 1/2 days to set up time machine. I called :apple:care and they told me it was because of the encryption.
I would never check that box again. :mad:
 
Meister said:
When I setup Time Machine for my macbook I did this and it took 1 1/2 days to set up time machine. I called :apple:care and they told me it was because of the encryption.
I would never check that box again. :mad:
Click to expand...

There must have been a problem with TM because all of mine took right away.
 
maflynn said:
The only thing that worries me, if its ended, then it will just sit there without any improvements. I hate relying on apps that will not be updated, especially for something as sensitive as encryption. Or am I misunderstanding your post.
Click to expand...

It doesn't actually worry me considering the circumstances that the project has ended. The authors basically said:

"Hello, we have shutdown TrueCrypt site, forums, source code and everything else because our software is not really safe. You can use the excelent Microsoft Bitlocker solution, though. Here goes the instructions."

If it wasn't safe enough, they would say why it's not safe, just like any security leak report. I think TrueCrypt is still the best encryption solution for who are looking for Snowden-class encryption :cool:. It's true that it wasn't fully audited, but which other proprietary encryption tool was audited?

In my case, I'm ok with encrypted sparsebundles, but for cross-compatibility with Linux-Windows-Mac, TrueCrypt can be an option to consider. Unless until the supposed "security issues" come to public.
 
brdeveloper said:
It doesn't actually worry me considering the circumstances that the project has ended. The authors basically said:

"Hello, we have shutdown TrueCrypt site, forums, source code and everything else because our software is not really safe. You can use the excelent Microsoft Bitlocker solution, though. Here goes the instructions."

If it wasn't safe enough, they would say why it's not safe, just like any security leak report. I think TrueCrypt is still the best encryption solution for who are looking for Snowden-class encryption :cool:. It's true that it wasn't fully audited, but which other proprietary encryption tool was audited?

In my case, I'm ok with encrypted sparsebundles, but for cross-compatibility with Linux-Windows-Mac, TrueCrypt can be an option to consider. Unless until the supposed "security issues" come to public.
Click to expand...

There hasn't been many updates on the audit this year, but when/if there are, this website and hashtag on Twitter can be used to follow along.

http://istruecryptauditedyet.com/

#istruecryptauditedyet

The big reason I still use TrueCrypt is that there are no "known" security flaws with it and it's cross-platform so I can use the same drives on OS X and Windows without any problems.
 
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