Full disk encryption on a SSD?

Five_Star · 22 Apr 2010 at 07:46

I’m currently running a 500GB SATA drive in my works laptop, it’s fully encrypted with Windows 7 BitLocker. I want to up the pace and get a SSD for my boot disk, probably the 80GB Intel as any much more than that won’t get the OK by the boss.

Does BitLocker or any type of full disk encryption degrade SSDs, does it affect the lifespan of the disk at all?

I must have full disk encryption on to satisfy the security policy for laptops so I need a SSD that can work well with it.

Five_Star · 22 Apr 2010 at 18:43

Thanks, I guess I'm worrying too much about the drive wear as its a business expense so will be written off in 2-3 years. I guess nobody has usage projections for SSDs yet as they are so new?

I'd still like to think somebody is running Windows 7 ultimate with an SSD and using BitLocker?

Five_Star · 28 Apr 2010 at 17:35

wow I wasn't expecting a response from the Microsoft Windows Client Team. I know how to use Bit Locker already I guess I'll have to watch the vid to see if it explains in detail if it affects a) the performance of the SSD and b) encrypting the drive fully reduces its life expectancy.

Five_Star · 29 Apr 2010 at 08:39

Well that video was fairly useless, all it told me was to configure BitLocker using group policy :confused:

no mention of BitLockers performance :rolleyes:

Doing a wider search last night I did find some technical benchmarks and the news isn't great. This guy did a test with Utimaco Safeguard Enterprise on a Intel x-25 160GB and it was dog slow http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=965 I couldn't find anything conclusive though for BitLocker which is what I need to use.

If the SSD is going to be no faster than my current SATA laptop disk I'll just stick with that and save my budget allocation.