From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail.saout.de ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.saout.de [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id PhEiHwPYlEpM for ; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:18:29 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mail-gx0-f178.google.com (mail-gx0-f178.google.com [209.85.161.178]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.saout.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS for ; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:18:28 +0200 (CEST) Received: by gxk8 with SMTP id 8so1711509gxk.37 for ; Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:18:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4E309CC0.6010706@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:18:24 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_F=E1bregas?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [dm-crypt] LUKS & TrueCrypt - Speed Test List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: dm-crypt@saout.de Hello everyone, Inspired by this old blog post: http://movingparts.net/2007/10/26/truecrypt-versus-luks-speed-test/ ...I decided to perform some tests on my Fedora 14 box. This is not a pro benchmark so be warned :) Common Facts for both tests: - source & destination filesystems were ext4 - destination is an external USB drive - source data size is 143GB (a folder with lots of files & directories, small & large files, regular data...) - rsync was used to perform the actual copy - I'm using an "encrypted partition " (against an encrypted file) - I did a test first with TrueCrypt and then with LUKS - Between the above tests, I shut down the machine (to flush filesystem cache). - my system kernel: 2.6.35.13-92.fc14.i686 ### TrueCrypt Results #### I used AES-256 (XTS operation mode), hash algorithm: ripemd-160 and the package was realcrypt-7.0a-1.fc14.i686 Output of time command after rsync finished: real 105m22.211s user 28m10.471s sys 41m35.319s ### DM-Crypt LUKS Results ### I used the defaults: AES-256 (CBC), sha1 for header hashing and the package cryptsetup-luks-1.1.3-1.fc14.i686 Output of time command after rsync finished: real 108m55.291s user 28m6.534s sys 42m53.400s As you can see, there's almost a 4 minute difference. I was expecting LUKS to be faster (as dm-crypt is a kernel module) and TrueCrypt runs mainly in user space isn't it? Do you think the cipher operation modes (XTS vs CBC) played a role in this difference? Have any of you performed a similar test? Regards, Jorge