Windows 10: Report: BitLocker slowing down SSDs on Windows 11 by up to 45%

A report by Tom's Hardware suggests that BitLocker may slow down Solid State Drives on Windows 11 Pro PCs by up to 45%.

The encryption technology is available on Windows 11 Pro devices only and enabled automatically on devices during setup. While there are ways around this, for example by using Rufus. most Windows 11 Pro systems are protected with BitLocker automatically.

Windows 11 Home devices don't support BitLocker in the same way, which works in their favor in this case. Windows administrators may enable BitLocker after setup as well.

BitLocker encryption may use hardware or software encryption. Hardware encryption means that the SSD's chip does the heavy lifting when it comes to encryption processes. Software encryption, on the other hand, pushes the workload to the device's processor.

Tests and results


Tom's Hardware tested the performance of Bitlocker using a Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB drive on a Windows 11 Pro system. The system was powered by an Intel Core i9-12900K processor with 32 GB of DDR4 memory.

Hardware encryption and no encryption got very similar results in PCMark 10 Storage. Tom's Hardware notes that hardware encryption did even a bit better than the unencrypted drive in the tests. What's worrying is that the performance of the software encrypted drive dropped significantly during the tests.

For bandwidth, it dropped from about 620.3 to 490.6. Latency was also higher, 42/43 versus 53, and the overall performance ranking therefore dropped from about 3900 to only 3100.

Tests in other benchmarking apps, Crystal Disk Mark, DiskBench, Atto Disk Benchmark and others confirmed the issue. A file copy benchmark showed an 11% drop in performance over hardware BitLocker, but only 3% in read speeds. Tom's Hardware suggests that the read speed might have been affected more if lots of small files were selected for the test instead of a single 50 GB file. This hypothesis was not verified though.

The testers conclude that software BitLocker can impact the performance of encrypted drives significantly on Windows 11 Pro.

Find out if BitLocker is enabled




First thing that Windows 11 Pro users may want to do is check if BitLocker is enabled on their devices. This can be done with a single command from an elevated command prompt:

1. Open Start on the device.
2. Type cmd.exe.
3. Select "Run as administrator" to launch an elevated command prompt window.
4. Paste the command manage-bde -status and press the Enter-key.
5. The command returns the status for all connected volumes.

Protection Status tells you if BitLocker encryption is enabled (On) or not (Off). If it is enabled, check the encryption method used. If you see "XTS-AES" there, software encryption is used.

How to disable BitLocker encryption


Switching to hardware BitLocker encryption may be out of the question for most Windows 11 Pro users, as it requires installing Windows 11 Pro anew.

Another option is to turn off BitLocker on the device. There is still the option to switch to another encryption solution, such as the open source VeraCrypt.

To disable BitLocker on a drive, run the command manage-bde off C: in an elevated command prompt window. Note that you may need to replace the drive letter C in the command with another drive letter, depending on the setup.

Disabling encryption leaves the data unencrypted on the drive. It is recommended to use another encryption software to protect it again.

Now You: do you use BitLocker?

Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Report: BitLocker slowing down SSDs on Windows 11 by up to 45% appeared first on gHacks Technology News.

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SSDs and Bitlocker Encryption

Seen that too and was just wanting to know if this works as expected. Also still trying to understand the difference between a Self-Encrypting Hard Drive and an Encrypted Hard Drive for Windows. All new to me. Just buying a system with the following drives and trying to work out how I will encrypt them. As I am buying a new PC to run Windows 11 (as I understand it updated including a TPM) I was hoping that hardware encrytption of these drives could be relied upon.

• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD (3500/3300)
• Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD (3500/3300)
• Samsung 870 EVO 1TB SSD Solid State Drive

 

SSDs and Bitlocker Encryption

Hi I have just ordered a new PC that will run Windows 11. Seems that we are beign forced into updating hardware to include the TPM and then it appears that one of the advantages of this is udnermined by the lack of standardised and sound SSD firmware implementation for hardware encryption forcing the revresion to software encryption of SSDs. Have I got that right?

1. If so, what is the current position. Does Windows 10 now take account of this by defaulting to not trusting SSD hardware encryption firmware therefore allowing bitlocker to encrypt in software? I am assuming whatever the answer is will apply equally to Windows 11.
2. Assuming bitlocker software encryption still has to be used, can I partition an SSD and encrypt just one partition for mounting at start up and the other for mounting manually as and when required or do two seperate SSDs need to be used to acheive this?
3. I am curious as to wether same can be acheived with hardware encryption assumign of course it might work as intended on SSDs?

Thanks in advance for any replies and assistance to understand this. I have not used SSDs before. ADDED: Edition Windows 10 Pro Version 20H2 Installed on ‎21/‎02/‎2021 OS build 19042.1466 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0

 

slow ssd

Hi,

Slow SSD performance can be caused by several factors like Hybernation mode and Superfetch service.

As an initial troubleshooting step, try disabling Hibernate mode since it is unnecessary for the SSD system as it takes too much time to boot from it.

• Open Command Prompt (Admin).
• Enter the administrator credentials once prompted.
• In the Command Prompt window, type or copy and paste this command:
  
  powercfg -h off
• Press Enter.

Note: Once Hibernate is already disabled, you can also free up some space to improve its performance.

We also recommenddisabing Superfetch as one way to optimize the SSD performance:

• Press Windows key + R to open the Run
  dialog box.
• Type services.msc and press Enter.
• Scroll down and right-click on Superfetch.
• Select Stop.

Update us with the outcome so we can provide further assistance.

*If you think this was useful, feel free to "mark it as an answer" to help those who are facing the same problem.*