Ubuntu 11.10 Home Encryption Performance

The first test was running the SQLite database test on both laptops. The Intel Sandy Bridge notebook with its quad-core CPU and solid-state drive really had no performance cost to the eCryptfs-based home encryption feature. The Core 2 Duo notebook with a mobile hard-drive was about 11% faster when not using the encrypted home directory.

The performance of the PostMark mail server test via home encryption had no statistical significance.

The Sandy Bridge notebook wasn't affected when running the FS-Mark test of 1000 files each of 1MB size when encrypting the user's home directory where the tests were taking place. The FS-Mark performance fell when using the encrypted home directory to the point that the stock EXT4 file-system without encryption was 16% faster.