Settings for fast unencryption

[Mathias]

Hi all,

Would you have advice on how to configure an encrypted partition to optimize for the speed of unencrypting it (i.e. initially mounting the partition), and possibly for the read/write speed once mounted (but this is less important).

I'm OK if the resulting encryption is not state of the art and safe against a governement or an organisation with a lot of (computing) power as nothing really sensitive wil be on the disk. I just want to protect against most people who would find the disk if I were to loose it. For some context, this is an SD card serving as a secondary drive on a low end laptop with an atom x5 processor (so quite slow).

Thanks for your help,

Mathias

[Enigma2Illusion]

Hello Mathias,

You can install VeraCrypt and run the benchmark from the main GUI by clicking on Tools > Benchmark. Run the Benchmark twice. Once for Encryption Algorithm and the second time PKC5-PRF. Then you can select the the appropriate encryption and hash that has the faster performance on your system.

[Mathias]

Thanks, I indeed found the benchmark menu. I guess, ideally lowering the PIM value below the default 485 would be the best thing to speed up the openning of a crypted volume. But I don't suppose there is an option to unlock this (unless by using a very long password] ?

[Enigma2Illusion]

To use a lower than default PIM value, you have to use a password of 20 or more characters.

[Mathias]

Yes I saw that. It's a bit strange as a limitation. I can understand that the software is trying to prevent me from blowing a hole in my foot, but maybe a big red warning would be sufficient instead of entirely preventing it (and the limit is strange, that a 19 char password needs a 98 PIM while a 20 char password is fine with a PIM of 1...). Or maybe there should be a PRO licence of veracrypt that unlock this feature (ok, I'm just kidding :-p).