How can Veracrypt Decryption be faster than copying the same data?

I'm thinking of installing Veracrypt and I read that it takes Veracrypt about 5 minutes to decrypt a 500 gig SSD. How is this possible? It takes me much longer to duplicate the same 500 gigs on my Windows 10 SSD!Can someone explain how this is possible?This is how I analyze the situation. The following are the fundamental tasks of each procedure: **1.** Vercrypt has the computer read the data, decrypt the data, and then finally write the data on the SSD. It does this over and over again. **2.** When the same computer copies 500 gigs on the same SSD, the computer reads the data and then writes the data on the SSD. It does this over and over again.∴ Relative to the 2nd procedure of simply copying, the Veracrypt procedure is exactly the same except Veracrypt has the additional, complicated task of decrypting the data. Veracrypt has to take longer time, no?How could the Veracrypt decryption be faster?

I don't know this for a fact, but is it possible that this number is simply the raw encoding or decoding speed of Veracrypt, not including the amount of time needed to read / write data?

I've noticed the same thing with encrypted USB flash drives. Copying files to a USB 2.0 flash drive encrypted with Veracrypt is about 5x faster than copying the same files unencrypted, with the same make and model of flash drive plugged into the same port. I had supposed it is due to some streamlining in the file system Veracrypt uses.

CerebralFreeze said:

I'm thinking of installing Veracrypt and I read that it takes Veracrypt about 5 minutes to decrypt a 500 gig SSD.

Where did you read that? I have no personal experience, but this page VeraCrypt and Encryption Algorithm Performance | Delightly Linux has a lot of speed information. I don't think it claims anywhere to have found VC faster than an un-encrypted drive.

Hi, mngerhold,

It claims on Veracrypt's website somewhere that it takes 5 minutes to decrypt a 500 gig SSD. I wrote this post immediately after reading it because I thought how is this possible when it takes my computer longer. I have a 2 TB hard drive and about 600 gigs worth of stuff right now and I had copied it a few months ago. My memory may serve me wrong but I remember it took a while. It was way longer than 5 minutes.

mngerhold said:

Where did you read that? I have no personal experience, but this page VeraCrypt and Encryption Algorithm Performance | Delightly Linux has a lot of speed information. I don't think it claims anywhere to have found VC faster than an un-encrypted drive.

You need to determine what the test conditions were. If you have a fast NVEe SSD, some are capable of rather high write speeds such 3,400 GB/s. Maybe they tested with one of those. Just because their tests got that kind of speed does not mean that YOU will see that kind of speed .

CerebralFreeze said:

It claims on Veracrypt's website somewhere that it takes 5 minutes to decrypt a 500 gig SSD.

I believe the answer to this is that any claims on speed refer to operations in RAM. See 'Encryption benchmarks' on the page I linked to above.

I have no idea you guys but I just recopied my SSD 970 Pro a week ago. It was about 550 gigs. I forget the reason why I had to copy it on the same drive. To be honest, I don't remember but I think it took about an hour. How can Veracrypt encrypt 500 gigs in 5 minutes? It can't be recoding every byte of data, right? Just impossible.

Once again, I will note that this spec is very likely the raw decryption speed that VeraCrypt is capable of, NOT taking into account the speed of reading and or writing data.

I really wouldn't get too hung up on this.

If you really need to know, try a test:

1) Measure how long it takes to copy a set of data from an unencrypted volume to another volume.
2) Encrypt the source volume.
3) Rerun the test USING THE SAME DATA.
4) Determine the time difference.