What is the performance cost to running BitLocker?

Question

BitLocker encrypts the entire hard drive. I run Visual Studio and build projects much of my day. How much will BitLocker slow me down (dual core laptop with 3 GB of RAM)?

Answer 1

MaximumPC ran a few tests:

However, when we busted out the hard-drive-intensive benches, we immediately saw as much as a 20 percent hit on the encrypted system. We're not sure the PCMark06 slowdown represents real-world performance, but our Photoshop script, which includes tons of hard-drive-intensive reverts, showed a 10 percent hit as well.

What's the bottom line? We're not going to enable BitLocker on systems that don't hold crucial, mission-critical data.

Benchmark (Unencrypted Drive; Encrypted Drive):

FEAR (FPS); 56; 57

3dMark06; 8071; 8082

PCMark06 Hard Drive Suite; 6133; 4948

Photoshop CS Script (Sec); 303; 330

Sure, running 3D benchmarks doesn't really make sense as you're hardly going to encrypt a gaming rig, but in the end it's simple trade-off: performance for security.