The 2019 Laptop Performance Cost To Linux Full-Disk Encryption

LUKS encryption tends to unfortunately have a noticeable impact on SQLite and other database workloads.

The CPU usage wasn't all that different.

But the power consumption was up slightly when running the SQLite benchmark on the encrypted disk. SQLite is commonly used by Firefox, Thunderbird, and many other desktop applications both on Windows and Linux.

For a workload like compiling the Linux kernel, using full-disk encryption meant no real difference in performance or impacting the system vitals.

For most of the real-world workloads, the cost of full-disk encryption on modern hardware is between minimal and a justifiable level for knowing your data is protected especially if frequently transporting your laptop.