Where to get a list of actions to improve OSX 10.6 processing speed?

Ugh. Encryption at any level is worse. Password forgotten, all data is lost. Not to mention it adds another tag file which if corrupted, the data gets lost, unless you can regenerate the password in another manner, but you have to access that which creates the encryption for whatever source that is. And encrypting can for all intents make the entire set of files have tags that if corrupted can make the files lost. I full heartedly support setting accounts which can be reset by an administrator, but disk wide encryption, you are introducing a whole new thing that can get corrupted at every bit level. Not good. Sure we can encrypt communication between machines, but to encrypt a whole disk, I hope you know where the reset button is. Otherwise data may be lost in perpetuity.

"Ugh" will not stop Apple from switching to SSD in current and future systems (or other PC vendors). So if you want to be sure your data is erased, and you are not willing to use encryption of any kind for sensitive data, then your other SSD option is to put the SSD in a blender and turn it into dust (See the "Will It Blend" videos on YouTube).

Password forgotten, all data is lost.

That is why you have backups. Best practice is 2 backups each by a different backup utility, and one of those should be off-site. If you want, those on rotating media which can be erased.

Also you should be using a password manager that is synced to more than one device, such as 1Password, LastPass, etc... so that you can access your whole disk encrypted password from another device. Of course the password manager has encrypted the list of passwords, so you cannot forget that :-)

I guess you could hope for a new Solid State technology, that does not have the Flash replacement issues. One that is better, faster, cheaper, and does not need replacement sectors.

NOTE: This discussion of SSD's and Encryption may not be an issue for the OP. He may just want his current Mac to go faster. More RAM and an SSD will do that (for a price). Upgrading to a new Mac may just do that as well, again since many Apple products today are using more RAM and SSD 🙂

Right but backups of encrypted data are still encrypted. You forget a password, or backup a damaged encrypted file, your problem is multiplied. If the password file itself is damaged, your up * creek without a paddle. Sooner or later you need something unencrypted to give you information about that which is encrypted, and some way to break the encryption if it gets damaged. You are faced with a chicken and egg problem. Only now both chicken and egg are wearing cloak and dagger.