Intel AES-NI For Ubuntu Home Encryption

Nope, even when the Sandy Bridge CPU is being fully occupied with other work, Intel AES-NI still does not help out with speeding up the Ubuntu home encryption feature.

This is a narrow set of disk-focused tests and from just a single hardware/software configuration, but it doesn't appear that the Intel AES-NI support is able to provide any advantage -- but in some cases, a disadvantage -- for the disk encryption performance in Ubuntu 11.10. These findings align with what Canonical has found. Of course, using AES-NI with other encryption tasks can yield different results and be of great benefit. Right now, the selection of Intel CPUs supporting AES-NI is also fairly limited (i.e. no AES-NI on Atom or pre-Arrandale/Clarkdale/Gulftown CPUs) and for the most part on the supported series is enabled just for their higher-end models.