[Discuss] NAS: encryption

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: Discuss [mailto:discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On
> Behalf Of Tom Metro
> 
> I imagine it would be challenging to pull off encryption well with
> appliance hardware. The first problem is getting the software to do it.
> (Plus all the automation you've previously discussed to set up the keys
> on boot.) The second challenge is having the horsepower to perform the
> encryption. Not impossible if they chose their embedded CPU well, but
> unlikely to be optimized for that.

You seem to think there's an obstacle which isn't really real - Encryption is very cheap computationally, so cheap indeed it can be done by the disks themselves. Yes, it's absolutely possible for appliances to utilize disk encryption, either by using its own CPU, or by offloading to the disks. I cannot speak to the specifics of any particular appliance actually doing it though, as I don't use any of them.