FileVault and Time Machine encryption saga

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FileVault and Time Machine encryption saga

My wife just bought the top of the line MacBook Pro running Catalina. Since she’s gonna be carrying it around I thought it might be smart to use FileVault to encrypt the solid state hard drive. I bought a 2 TB Western Digital external hard drive and tried to make a simple time machine back up. After searching several forums and three days of trying to figure this all out I’m totally confused on how to proceed.

I have several important questions:

If your hard drive is encrypted and you make a time machine back up without encryption does it decrypt all the information and take days to make a simple first back up?

If your hard drive is encrypted and you select encryption does it decrypt all the data then re-encrypt it because that’s what it seems like it’s doing

several people have said if you have FileVault on and you select encryption for your time machine back up, it won’t re-encrypt the data it’ll just copy it, but I don’t find that to be what’s happening?

I hope there’s some expert out there they could point me to the correct solution. I’d like both her laptop and time machine back up to be encrypted but if it takes days or weeks each time that is totally unacceptable.

i’m on my fifth iMac and I’ve never used FileVault but I always encrypt the hard drives before I use them for Time Machine back ups and never had a problem. this is pretty much insane and if you read the different forums the advice it’s conflicting and confusing!

my original thought was to use FileVault on her hard drive and then not select encryption for time machine and just encrypt the hard drive first but that doesn’t seem to be working out either???

Any help or advice from an expert on this would be useful and appreciated!

MacBook

Posted on Jun 1, 2020 9:41 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

etresoft

Level 9

56,206 points

Jun 2, 2020 7:08 AM in response to Robert Garven

I think the problem is that you didn’t follow my instructions above.

For the Time Machine drive, an easy trick is to reformat it as HFS+, case sensitive, encrypted before using it. Then, when you choose it to use as Time Machine and click the "encrypt backup" button, it will see that it is already encrypted and you won't have to wait at all.

If you don’t click the button, you are telling Time Machine to make an unencrypted backup. Time Machine is a little confused at first. He wants me to use this drive to backup. Ok, fair enough. The drive is encrypted but he wants an unencrypted back? Whatever - do what the user instructs. Go ahead and do the backup and start the decryption task.

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Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

56,206 points

Jun 1, 2020 10:45 AM in response to Robert Garven

You should encrypt both. That way, you never have to worry.

The sooner you do the encryption, the faster it will be. For the new machine, turn on FileVault and let it sit there, plugged in, until it completes. It shouldn't take very long.

For the Time Machine drive, an easy trick is to reformat it as HFS+, case sensitive, encrypted before using it. Then, when you choose it to use as Time Machine and click the "encrypt backup" button, it will see that it is already encrypted and you won't have to wait at all.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,036 points

Jun 1, 2020 10:16 AM in response to Robert Garven

I encrypt my MBP for the reason you are considering it.

I don't encrypt the backup drive because I think the risk of it being stolen is much, much lower since it sits at home.

It will take a long time to encrypt a drive with data on it. It takes very little time at all to encrypt the drive when you erase it.

I have not backed up to an encrypted drive, so I don't know what kind of performance penalty there might be. I can't imagine there is one.

my original thought was to use FileVault on her hard drive and then not select encryption for time machine and just encrypt the hard drive first but that doesn’t seem to be working out either???

What doesn't work about this?

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Answer 4

Jun 1, 2020 2:27 PM in response to Robert Garven

Thank you all for your advice. But still confused. I stopped the backup, erased the HD and formatted it as a case-sensitive journal encrypted, and mounted it and assigned it as the TM backup disk. It then said it must be decrypted to backup, so I gave the password and it completed the TM backup in 2 hours. It then finished and automatically started what it calling "decrypting" on the System Preferences TM window. Looks like this will be the several day process. What is it decyrpting? The empty portion of the external disc? My wife HD? ??? If this just does this once that is OK but I normally do weekend backups and if this takes 3 days each weekend then thats is crazy!

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

56,206 points

Jun 1, 2020 4:25 PM in response to Robert Garven

It would be better to stop and make take a screenshot before forging ahead. What you've said doesn't make any sense. It clearly didn't need to be decrypted to perform the backup, because it backed up while encrypted. I don't know why it is decrypting now, but you should clearly stop the process and try again.

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Answer 6

Jun 1, 2020 11:49 PM in response to etresoft

I think it is the WD my passport ultra drive as I bought two and cant get the other one to do a TM backup on my iMac running 10.13.6! Neither drive after being reformatted as "Mac OS journaled encrypted" will perform a TM backup without TM asking for the encryption PW, then it goes into a nightmare encrypting/decrypting routine that is insane. These may work for unencrypted drives but won't work after trying everything I could. I am trying to wipe one using tech tool pro in case there is some WD software disc utility couldn't remove. I have never had this problem and have 3 wd over passports in use now......

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FileVault and Time Machine encryption saga

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