[Discuss] Revisiting VMWare ESX backup options

[Edward Ned Harvey (blu)]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Rich Braun
> 
> AES
> encryption no longer adds meaningful overhead to your operations; it's
> built-in to current-generation CPUs.

I've spent a good amount of time benchmarking encryption operations, and I can say this:  Even without AES-NI, CPU's in general are so darn fast, there's *still* no meaningful overhead to use AES-256.  A single core, circa Pentium D or Core 2, could encrypt/decrypt a 1Gbit stream without AES-NI, using only about 30% to 35% of a single core.  If you have AES-NI, it comes down to about 3% to 5% CPU utilization.  And of course, nowadays you always have more cores, each of which are more powerful than those I benchmarked.