FileVault performance impact on G5?

[AC910]

Hi All

I'm considering enabling FileVault on my quad g5 running 10.5.8. I'm using it on a SSD. Does anyone have any experience with this? What's the performance drop like?

Thanks

 

[eyoungren]

No real performance drop. But do realise that because filevault is essentially an encrypted sparse disk image you cannot expect consistent recovery of drive space.

If you delete say 1GB of data you are not going to immediately get 1GB of space back. You may not get all of that 1GB back.

Later versions of filevault are much better at this, but not the Tiger/Leopard versions.

 

[bobesch]

...But do realise that because filevault is essentially an encrypted sparse disk image you cannot expect consistent recovery of drive space.
If you delete say 1GB of data you are not going to immediately get 1GB of space back. You may not get all of that 1GB back. ...

Oh!? I'm using encryption on all my essential books since my MBAir had been stolen...
On PPC the user folders are encrypted separately - FileVault2 encrypts the whole disk.
As far as I understand, the encrypted user's container is reorganized during the log-off prodedure, since this takes it's time. So until that moment disk-space is blocked, even if the trash had been emptied...

 

[eyoungren]

Oh!? I'm using encryption on all my essential books since my MBAir had been stolen...
On PPC the user folders are encrypted separately - FileVault2 encrypts the whole disk.
As far as I understand, the encrypted user's container is reorganized during the log-off prodedure, since this takes it's time. So until that moment disk-space is blocked, even if the trash had been emptied...

You can also recover disk space by using a terminal command or zeroing free disk space using Disk Utility.

The problem here is that if you do not logout frequenly, this action does not trigger. You also have to be connected to power if you are using a laptop.

 

[bunnspecial]

The only PPC Mac on which I use File Vault is my Quad at work, and I would say that the performance impact is negligible if at all present.

As mentioned, in Leopard when you log out or shutdown the computer you will get a "recovering disk space" progress bar that will take anywhere from a few seconds to few minutes to complete depending on how much disk writing you've done in that session.

It's also worth mentioning that FileVault encryption is somewhat dated by current standards. My work requires all computers(whether personally owned or university owned) that store "sensitive" information to be encrypted. FileVault 2 meets their standards, while FileVault doesn't. For that reason, I don't keep student information or other protected records on my PPC systems despite FileVault being enabled. I try to keep using PPC Macs as much as I can at work, but little things like this unfortunately keep pushing more of my workflow toward Intel Macs. The Quad has been getting a workout this week, though, as it has some software for which I don't have an Intel version.

 

[Hrududu]

The only PPC Mac on which I use File Vault is my Quad at work, and I would say that the performance impact is negligible if at all present.

As mentioned, in Leopard when you log out or shutdown the computer you will get a "recovering disk space" progress bar that will take anywhere from a few seconds to few minutes to complete depending on how much disk writing you've done in that session.

It's also worth mentioning that FileVault encryption is somewhat dated by current standards. My work requires all computers(whether personally owned or university owned) that store "sensitive" information to be encrypted. FileVault 2 meets their standards, while FileVault doesn't. For that reason, I don't keep student information or other protected records on my PPC systems despite FileVault being enabled. I try to keep using PPC Macs as much as I can at work, but little things like this unfortunately keep pushing more of my workflow toward Intel Macs. The Quad has been getting a workout this week, though, as it has some software for which I don't have an Intel version.

Would you believe I still use Apple File Security on OS 9 for a few documents? 😀

 

[bobesch]

With mSATA-mod with FileVault(FV) the recovery at log-off is reasonable fast on my PB-G5 1.5Ghz.
Even if FV2 is much more secure (and I have both my intel-machines and backup-drives encrypted with FV2 using CCC for backup-disc encryption), I'm very happy to have at least FV1 at the PPC machines hoping, that in most instances if someone else gets hands on the machine, he will wipe down/reinstall it in FireWire mode or at least delete the encrypted user accounts.
If ever someone is tempted to take away this old stuff at all...
And whenever someone might break into our house he surely gets into trouble which computer is worth to take 🙂

 

[MysticCow]

Do you have a reason to encrypt your entire home directory or would an encrypted disk image work just fine?

I'm not against it, but if you don't have to encrypt everything, why do it?

 

[bobesch]

Do you have a reason to encrypt your entire home directory or would an encrypted disk image work just fine?
I'm not against it, but if you don't have to encrypt everything, why do it?

It's more convenient to have the whole user-account/home-directory encrypted instead of thinking about each single file.
Same about FV2 - I do not bother, that the whole disk is encrypted.
It's all about "set and forget" - otherwise I'm sure I'm gonna mix things up.
Difficult enough to keep all the favourite-PPC-machines "together" - the MB2008alu rules them all and holds a one-way CCC-copie of the document-, desktop- and etc-folder of each PPC. Some PPC-stuff resides in the cloud with webDAV and I try to keep Dropbox off my daily routine.
For my (rare) Intel-machines, which hold my paperless office etc. FV2 is mandatory for both mac and backup-drives (all-together they also hold a backup-copy of my office's Win08Server too). I guess, data will be more secure on the Macs and attached CCC-copies, than on the server... 😉