NAS encryption - CPU vs hardware

[Amadeus1756]

I am looking to buy a NAS and am currently edging towards a QNAP 879. One of the reasons for this is that with the i3 CPU, it will do encryption with less loss of performance (I read a comment on the QNap forums (from QNap) saying that there is practically no loss of performance).
However, I see that the new Synology 213+ has hardware encryption built in. Will hardware encryption mean that a fast CPU is no longer required - will data writes be as quick with encryption as without (or near as damnit)? Is it assumed that the next generation of NAS' will have hardware encryption built in?

Many thanks

 

[thiggins]

I haven't benchmarked encryption on/off, so can't comment on performance differences.

The encryption hardware that Synology refers to is a different CPU that has an encryption engine on-board (Freescale vs. Marvell in the DS213).

No, you can't assume that hardware encryption is built-in on current or future NASes.

 

[Amadeus1756]

Thanks Tim, good info.

Would you consider doing encryption performance testing for future hardware reviews? I'm guessing that a lot of people would consider it something that would appeal only to a small %age of users, tho that might be different if there was no performance hit involved.

 

[thiggins]

I might do a feature article. But won't add this to the test list. It's long enough as it is!

 

[Amadeus1756]

Sure, that's understandable. Would be interested in a comparison if you did find the time.

Rgds

 

[stevech]

This may not work for you.. but I have just a tiny few sensitive folders - financial info, personal records, etc. Only about 1 GB.
I use SafeHouse (freeware, good, easy) on PCs that need to work with that sensitive data. Very quick to click, enter password, and it mounts drive letter with the encrypted data. I work the data, then close all files and it auto-dismounts.

I can copy the 500MB or 1GB file of folders, as it is encrypted, to the NAS (as I do with automatic backups using the NAS software). Also can copy the file to thumb drive along with the SafeHouse EXE file so I can access it on other PCs (it erases its temp files).

But if you must encrypt 100's of GB, the above won't be practical.
========

Some hard drives these days have encryption (like AES128) built-in. Transparent, I guess. Not sure how keys are managed with these.

 

[Amadeus1756]

Thanks for the suggestion Steve.
Most of my sensitive stuff is like yours, pretty small. I could probably do the same as your doing but I can imagine that over a period of time I'd end up with files in other areas and forget to encrypt them.

Certainly something for me to consider. I may have a look at safehouse and keep an eye on new nas' and see if they do hardware encryption.

Thanks again.

 

[stevech]

TruCrypt can do the same as freeware SafeHouse, but the latter is much simpler to use: click, enter password, and there you are.

I've used this scheme for 3 years or so and I do keep all my sensitive info in that Safehouse virtual encrypted drive. Not hard to use this discipline.

 

[Amadeus1756]

Well I've just noticed on the Synology site that the performance figures for the 213+ are shown and include encrypted traffic. Looks like it's about 1/2 speed if you turn encryption on. Higher than I'd have expected/liked.
Wonder what it's like on devices like the QNap x79's which have a beefy CPU to do it. I saw something on their forum saying that because of the CPU the performance hit was negligible.

http://www.synology.com/products/performance.php?lang=enu#tabs-2