HT204837: Use FileVault to encrypt the startup disk on your Mac

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LouieM3
Level 1 (8 points)
Mac OS X

Q: FileVault2 Performance

Is there any good technical information and/or real world tests done on the performance hit that FileVault2 will have on OS X?  In rolling this out in our company there is some push back with developers and other individuals in general that they are concerned with it slowing down their Mac.  I've yet to experience any major noticeable latency but I understand everyones use case is different so I thought I'd ask on here.

 

Thanks in advance

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 17, 2016 11:58 AM

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LouieM3

Q: FileVault2 Performance

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Georg Portenkirchner,

    Georg Portenkirchner Georg Portenkirchner Jun 17, 2016 12:06 PM in response to LouieM3
    Level 2 (272 points)
    iTunes
    Jun 17, 2016 12:06 PM in response to LouieM3

    I do not know about any studies but people I know who have enabled FileFault mostly are surprised that they experienced no or only a slight impact on the performance.

    On computers with SSDs it seems to have no noticeable effect.

    But this is only what some people said mostly doing only emails, web browsing, writing texts, etc.

  • by FoxFifth,

    FoxFifth FoxFifth Jun 17, 2016 12:25 PM in response to LouieM3
    Level 7 (25,748 points)
    iPhone
    Jun 17, 2016 12:25 PM in response to LouieM3

    The following is old but may help: http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/10/filevault-2-benchmarks-disk-encryption-faster-mac -os-x-lion/

    I have a 2012 base model MacBook Air with FileVault2 on and can't notice any difference.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Jun 17, 2016 4:23 PM in response to LouieM3
    Level 6 (19,272 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 17, 2016 4:23 PM in response to LouieM3

    If you want real world performance test it head to head on the same system.

    Just make sure the entire disk has finished being encrypted before testing, as it is not fair to test while FileVault is still encrypting the disk.

     

    i5 and i7 intel CPUs include dedicated encryption/decryption logic that makes the FileVault encryption less of a load on the system.  Older chips do not, so that would be done in software.

     

    Macs with rotational disks may not notice, as the disk transfer times may totally overshadow the encryption/decryption times.

     

    Macs with SSDs may not notice if they just came from a rotational drive, as everything is so much faster.

     

    Macs with SSDs where the user has had the system for awhile, may notice a tiny change, especially if they are measuring before and after due to the fast SSD I/O such that encryption/decryption may be a slightly larger portion of the total I/O time.

     

    Macs with SSDs should really be using FileVault, as SSD are very difficult to securely erase due to the nature of the SSD internal operations.  With FileVault, once you reformat the drive, the decryption keys are destroyed and from that point forward the rest of the data is just a bunch of random bits.  To this end, Apple has removed the Secure erase option for SSD storage (secure erase would also unnecessarily shorten the life of an SSD, as SSDs have a limited number of write cycles).

     

    Personally, I do not really notice it, but I have an SSD and an i7 CPU.