Encryption - does it slow the phone?

[curious_george]

I have a verizon S4 and was thinking of encrypting the phone and the SD card. Has anyone else done and noticed if their phone slows down after the encryption.

For example - when opening emails, apps or playing songs saved on the phone.

- Also, if the phone is encrypted - can I still move files to my computer by connecting the phone with a USB cable.

Thanks

 

[leeshor]

Encryption WILL slow the phone down, no question. Any files you transfer to your computer will get unencrypted on the fly.

 

[curious_george]

Any idea of how much it will slow down the phone? For example, is there a lag of few seconds or more than 10 seconds when switching between emails or playing music?

Is it noticeable to the point of being annoying?

Thanks

 

[leeshor]

That is a question with no real objective answer. It depens on the initial performance of the phone, file sizes and much more. Suffice it to say some people have found it unacceptable, other not so much.

 

[curious_george]

Did you personally find that encryption slowed your phone down significantly?

 

[leeshor]

As I said, results may be different for different devices and your idea of slow may or may not match with mine. I can tell you that over several forums I have seen people ask why encryption slowed their device so I assume they were not happy.

 

[bbtkd]

Encryption WILL slow the phone down, no question. Any files you transfer to your computer will get unencrypted on the fly.

And if both your phone and PC are encrypted and talk only via encrypted protocols - as some companies/agencies insist - transferring a file will lead to it being unencrypted as it is read from your phone memory, immediately encrypted by network code for the transfer, unencrypted by network code on the other end, and then encrypted to be written to storage on the other end. All of this does have a CPU impact, though the code is extremely efficient. For instance, encrypted file transfers often will not significantly impact transfer rates. I'd be surprised if encryption takes more than a few percent of CPU, and you'll never notice it since most phones have far more CPU power than they really need.