How much will TrueCrypt slow down my Notebook?

I have a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv6836tx Notebook, Microprocessor 2.50 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, and I am wanting to encrypt my 40GB C: drive.

Will it slow down my Notebook a lot? And will I still be able to play onlines games such as Battlefield 2142 and not have it slow down so much that it's unplayable?

 

I have a feeling that nobody is answering you because of the gaming part. I'll tell you that I don't know about playing games; but I can tell you that normal browsing, watching Netflix and other movies off the drive - none of that is slowed down at all. In fact, some people swear anecdotally that it actually sped their system up! Point being, I don't think you will even notice. You can always undo it with a simple uninstall if, for some reason, it were to slow things down with the gaming.

 

I jumped into the deep end and installed TC. And may I say I am pleasantly surprised how well my Notebook is running. It doesn't feel any different at all, and playing BattleField 2142 online hasn't changed, it still runs and plays the same as before.

I even have networked my Notebook and Xbox 360 and stream recorded TV shows from Notebook to Xbox 360 and they play the same too, no difference. I really cannot tell a difference at all in everything I do.

TrueCrypt is one piece of very impressive software

But I have another question. How will it work with Acronis TrueImage? If I create an image of C: using Acronis TrueImage, will it work? And will it restore the image properly?

 

You need to create a boot disk and backup selecting a raw image.

 

Does truecrypt add additional "usage" to the hard drive though? Laptops can be notorious for failed hard drives, and just wondering if the additional processing to constantly keep encryption on the fly affects this..

 

It shouldn't after the initial encryption step is completed. All the on-the-fly encryption / decryption is done in memory.

 

Cool.