FileVault - Secure Virtual memory - Does this option affect performance?

[habilis]

Secure Virtual Memory is the only option I have checked in FileVault. I was wondering what effect this has on my machine. Does it hold virtual memory fragments or delete them immediately? Does it have an effect on the cpu's?

 

[lurk]

IIRC it encrypts the memory pages before writing them to the disk. That way they people cannot get a picture of the machine's memory content by just looking into the swap file.

Yes, it does have an impact but precisely at that point you are most likely IO bound so taking the time out to encrypt the block in memory is not a big thing.

 

[ex2bot]

Incidentally, I don't think that's part of FileVault. It's an option on the Security Preference Pane below the FileVault options. The only reason I mention that is that I was thinking, "Do I need to enable FileVault to have secure virtual memory?" You don't.


Doug