Lollipop 5.0: Encryption causes bitter performance drops

Lollipop 5.0 is what Google says to be a sweet new take on Android, with an abundance of security features that promise to protect user information from hackers and snoops. This security, however, may prove to be the hard candy that may cause a huge amount of strain on the device in terms of performance.

The degree of protection featured in the latest Android OS works involves an encryption that runs automatically from the first time a device is turned on. Google sees this as a way to keep data safer without the need to modify the settings.

"Full device encryption occurs at first boot, using a unique key that never leaves the device," said Google in a blog post. Sweet, indeed.

However, a recent performance test AnandTech ran on two Lollipop-enabled Nexus 6 devices showed a bitter core beneath the sugar-coated promise of security.

Comparing one with and one without full-disc encryption (FDE) enabled, the tech publication observed a "significant performance penalty that comes with enabling FDE."

The security feature caused a 62.9 per cent drop in random read performance, and 50.5 per cent in random write performance. Meanwhile, sequential read performance recorded a massive 80.7 per cent decrease.

Google's move to activate encryption by default is seen to closely resemble the degree of protection iPhones have recently provided with iOS 8, where only the lockscreen password can be used as a key to decrypt. And only the device's owner can gain access to the user data stored on smartphones or tablets.

AnandTech pointed out that eMMC and SoCs used in Android devices are not equipped to handle FDE without a hit to performance. That said, users of Lollipop-enabled devices will have to wait for a while for a version update that fixes FDE's negative impact on performance.

Security vs performance

In the light of Lollipop 5.0, the question about data security in relation to performance becomes all the more urgent.

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Lollipop 5.0: Encryption causes bitter performance drops