BitLocker Encryption process VERY Slow on Win10

PantherDD said:

Well, if it's new and there's no data on it yet, you've got nothing to lose. Feel free to try Windows 7, my guess is that it would work just fine, but if it doesn't, you can just reformat / repartition the drive and start over.

Actually, if the drive is new and empty, why don't you encrypt "data only"? That would be done in seconds.

kinda 4 days in now, and worried if i try and restart the encryption in Win7, something bad may happen to the new drive..

Also the 'encrypt data only' option, i was unsure about... if i took that option, then everytime i copy data, does it take ages to copy over as it encrypts? its not very clear.

thedoc46 said:

kinda 4 days in now, and worried if i try and restart the encryption in Win7, something bad may happen to the new drive..

Also the 'encrypt data only' option, i was unsure about... if i took that option, then everytime i copy data, does it take ages to copy over as it encrypts? its not very clear.

"something bad may happen to the new drive" -- The encryption is purely a software thing, there is no chance for physical damage, no matter how much you screw up. :) (Well, you could overheat the drive or wear it down with the amount of disk activity the encryption causes, but that would be independent of whether you switch to Win7 or not.)

"everytime i copy data, does it take ages to copy over as it encrypts?" -- Writing to or reading from an encrypted drive always has the overhead of encrypting or decrypting the data. (In other words, it will have to encrypt the new data as you copy it onto the drive even if you used the "encrypt entire drive " option.) However, if you have a good enough CPU, it won't slow your system down. And if you don't, well, it's going to be painful no matter whether you encrypted the entire drive or used disk space only.

PantherDD said:

"something bad may happen to the new drive" -- The encryption is purely a software thing, there is no chance for physical damage, no matter how much you screw up. :) (Well, you could overheat the drive or wear it down with the amount of disk activity the encryption causes, but that would be independent of whether you switch to Win7 or not.)

"everytime i copy data, does it take ages to copy over as it encrypts?" -- Writing to or reading from an encrypted drive always has the overhead of encrypting or decrypting the data. (In other words, it will have to encrypt the new data as you copy it onto the drive even if you used the "encrypt entire drive " option.) However, if you have a good enough CPU, it won't slow your system down. And if you don't, well, it's going to be painful no matter whether you encrypted the entire drive or used disk space only.

Thanks, guess i'm learning stuff about Bitlocker ! :) I paused it, deleted the partition, re-ran bitlocker this time using 'used space only' and it was done within a min or two... Tested speed by uploading/copying a large file, and it was the same speed as i would as my other bitlocker drive.. LIVE AND LEARN !!!! as they say... At least there's a thread out there (i.e this one) that explains it all a little better for people wanting to bitlock their 'new' ext drives. Do the used space only !!! or expect to wait a week or two for it to complete :)

thedoc46 said:

Thanks, guess i'm learning stuff about Bitlocker ! :) I paused it, deleted the partition, re-ran bitlocker this time using 'used space only' and it was done within a min or two... Tested speed by uploading/copying a large file, and it was the same speed as i would as my other bitlocker drive.. LIVE AND LEARN !!!! as they say... At least there's a thread out there (i.e this one) that explains it all a little better for people wanting to bitlock their 'new' ext drives. Do the used space only !!! or expect to wait a week or two for it to complete :)

Cool, I'm happy to hear that you can start using that external drive now. :)