It reads from a drive, encrypts each file and writes it, so there is an element of a large buffer to hold. I Wouldn't think that the terminal is the actual pro

It reads from a drive, encrypts each file and writes it, so there is an element of a large buffer to hold. I Wouldn't think that the terminal is the actual problem, but running the same job side by side consistently failed on the gnome terminal and finished successfully on urxvt. On a side note, OP remark on CD-ROMs was regarding writing, CD-ROMs write feed had to be an uninterrupted, continuous stream, and the smallest hiccup would blow the operation and render the media useless.