Home / server / Questions / 301970
In Process
Robin Day
Asked: 2011-08-18 01:30:28 +0800 CST

Using Encrypting File System on SQL Server data files

  • 772

I have SQL Server 2008 standard edition running on Windows Server 2003.

I need to encrypt the databases.

One obvious option is to upgrade to enterprise edition and use TDE.

However, this might not be an option due to cost.

Can anyone provide any information about if it is possible to use Windows Encrypting File System to encrypt the SQL Server Data directories?

Would this work? Would this cause any major performance hit?

Any other alternatives would also be greatly appreciated.

windows sql-server encryption

1 Answers

  1. You'd have an overhead in the OS that SQL Server wouldn't know about and would cause issues (similar to why NTFS compressions shouldn't be used for SQL Server).

    I also wouldn't bother because:

    • your backups (in the backup system or on tape) won't be encrypted
    • nor will data over the network to your client code/servers
    • complicates restores/DR etc
    • doing it cheaply is not doing it correctly
    • enabling it on the server is pointless when you have so many other angles of attack to get the data.
    • 3