Evaluating encryption algorithms for sensitive data using different storage devices

Abstract

Sensitive data need to be protected from being stolen and read by unauthorized persons regardless of whether the data are stored in hard drives, flash memory, laptops, desktops, and other storage devices. In an enterprise environment where sensitive data is stored on storage devices, such as financial or military data, encryption is used in the storage device to ensure data confidentiality. Nowadays, the SSD-based NAND storage devices are favored over HDD and SSHD to store data because they offer increased performance and reduced access latency to the client. In this paper, the performance of different symmetric encryption algorithms is evaluated on HDD, SSHD, and SSD-based NAND MLC flash memory using two different storage encryption software. Based on the experiments we carried out, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm on HDD outperforms Serpent and Twofish algorithms in terms of random read speed and write speed (both sequentially and randomly), whereas Twofish algorithm is slightly faster than AES in sequential reading on SSHD and SSD-based NAND MLC flash memory. By conducting full range of evaluative tests across HDD, SSHD, and SSD, our experimental results can give better idea for the storage consumers to determine which kind of storage device and encryption algorithm is suitable for their purposes. This will give them an opportunity to continuously achieve the best performance of the storage device and secure their sensitive data.