Comments on: FREE Full Hard Drive Encryption

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:46:00 +0000

im sold. i will report back as well. thanks pd

By: PD

PD — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:24:00 +0000

Regarding the performance hit from on-the-fly encryption.

In a completely unscientific test, I copied a single 700 Meg file from one partition on my drive to another. It took 30 seconds.

Then I created a 1 Gig Truecrypt file and copied the same file into the encrypted container. It took 39 seconds. Copying the file from the Truecrypt container to an unencrypted location also took 39 seconds.

So, yes on-the-fly encryption does appear to create a performance hit, but for sensitive data, I'm more than willing to make that tradeoff.

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:30:00 +0000

Thanks Jason and nice site. Let us know how it goes!

We might be able to help you out get at me info at asktheadmin dot com. Where are you from?

By: ????? (Jason)

????? (Jason) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:37:00 +0000

Can't argue with the price, but the added processing time is something I wouldn't look forward to.

I used Ceelox a while back when I was taking a notebook to work everyday (I was a programmer and database admin, and needed to work from several locations). It worked in conjunction with the fingerprint scanner on my ThinkPad and there was no noticable lag when accessing the encrypted files.

That said, I've recently made the switch to Ubuntu at home and haven't found any decent encrypted storage vaults. I might just give this one a try :)

By: ????? (Jason)

????? (Jason) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:37:00 +0000

By: PD

PD — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:02:00 +0000

@Karl – It can take quite a while. You can’t use TrueCrypt to encrypt the boot partition, so typically you’re not doing the whole disk.

That being said, I encrypted a 250 Gig external drive I use for backups and I remember it taking about 24 hours. Sure, it’s a long time, but you only have to do it once.

@QW – Any encryption will add additional processing time, but I don’t find it noticeable. Besides, if you need the benefits and protection of encryption, that’s the price you pay.

By: qw

qw — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:40:00 +0000

I think it will make the computer run slower, because of the decoding needed to access each part of data.

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:56:00 +0000

@PD – how long does it take to encrypt?

By: PD

PD — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:46:00 +0000

Yes, TrueCrypt is free.
http://www.truecrypt.org/

It is available for Windows and Linux and you can actually open a TrueCrypt container created on one platform on the other. The encryption is totally on-the-fly, so no unencrypted data ever exists except in RAM.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:38:00 +0000

Is TrueCrypt free?

By: PD

PD — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 22:17:00 +0000

I think I still prefer using TrueCrypt and creating a container or partition for sensitive documents.
Of course, that’s for desktop use. For a laptop full drive encryption may be more useful.

By: El Di Pablo

El Di Pablo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:20:00 +0000

Karl: Yes, it prompts you with a password at boot up. If you enter it correctly it will hand off to the operating system. When you set it up you configure a pin number as well so if you forget your password you can reset it. If you forget both, you are hosed.

Yeah, sorry about the long encryption time thing. it is good to set it right before bed time, then wake up and have it be finished.

banana12?!?! Not even close, more like orange13...

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:57:00 +0000

Wait a minute....

I know your password now

banana12!

:)

By: The Slothman

The Slothman — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:58:00 +0000

6+hrs to encrypt…might have to wait on doing that….

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:36:00 +0000

does this require you enter a password when you logon?

6 hours?? Ouch i might just wait till late tonight to mess with it.

By: El Di Pablo

El Di Pablo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:28:00 +0000

I forgot to answer the “how long” question. It takes a long friggin’ time for the encryption process. On my Toshiba Tecra it took about 6 hours. Make sure you have plenty of time.

By: El Di Pablo

El Di Pablo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:15:00 +0000

Yeah…About that…No

You better pray your hard drive doesn’t crash. Make sure to make frequent back-ups

By: Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:25:00 +0000

Very informative post but to play devils advocate – can you bypass this encryption scheme to get to your files?

Is there ANY possibility this will frag my machine and destroy my data?

I might grab an older laptop and give this a try – how long does it take?

By: The Slothman

The Slothman — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:23:00 +0000

I will be installing this on my home pc and my laptop today.

Grassy ass!