SSL Bandwidth Hog?

[firefly2442]

Hello. I was just wondering how much more bandwidth and processing time is needed by the server in order to implement a SSL transaction as opposed to a plain port 80 web connection. Is there a difference? Thanks.

[coopster]

There are quite a few parameters that may impact the performance...

Why has my webserver a higher load now that I run SSL there? 
Because SSL uses strong cryptographic encryption and this needs a lot of number crunching. And because when you request a webpage via HTTPS even the images are transferred encrypted. So, when you have a lot of HTTPS traffic the load increases.

Resources:
SSL/TLS Strong Encryption: FAQ [httpd.apache.org]
Apache Module mod_ssl [httpd.apache.org]
[openssl.org...]