Encrypt Entire External Hard Drive (or Time Machine Folder)

[sumocomputers]

I have read a lot of documentation on Time Machine and Espionage, but unless I missed it, I can't find info on Encrypting the Time Machine backup itself. Most of the docs refer to Time Machine backing up Espionage'd folders.

Here is my rationale: I do all my Time Machine Backups to external hard drive. I don't want to use FileVault for various reasons. I am not concerned about the contents on the internal drive on the MacBook Pro being encrypted, but I do want the Time Machine backups on the the external drive to be encrypted, since the external drive is not always in my control.

Could I just let Time Machine do it's first backup, then encrypt the entire Time Machine folder with Espionage? I would then unlock that folder as soon as it is plugged in. Are there any issues with this? Is there a way to do whole disk encryption with Espionage as an alternative to a specific folder? Sorry if this has been addressed already.

Thanks,

Chris

[mike]

Hi sumocomputers,

Espionage won’t be able to work properly with your Time Machine’s backups folder. The way that Time Machine works on your computer doesn’t allow Espionage to detect when Time Machine is performing a backup. It is part of the OS itself, not an app that Espionage can detect like for many other apps.

You can let Time Machine do its first backup and then encrypt the folder but the next time Time Machine runs, it may not be able to detect the previous backups because it looks at the drive as a whole, not just the folder. What’d happen is that Time Machine asks if you want to create a new backup or pick a different volume for the backups. You may be able to do this manually but it may not work as you expected since Time Machine is picky about how the drive is set up.

It isn’t possible to use FileVault to encrypt an external drive at the moment but it will be possible starting with OS X Lion to support full disk encryption for external drives. Espionage is designed to encrypt specific folders to reduce the performance hit from using FileVault on the entire drive. It doesn’t support full disk encryption but that may not mean it will not be possible in the future.

[Lowlander]

I just bought one of these external drives and when I plug it into the computer running Windows 7 it's not running
what do I need to do?

[zsolt]

Contact the vendor or shop you bought it in, and ask them. This forum does not cover Windows OS.
Rgds
Zsolt