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User profile for user: jszrules
jszrules Author
User level: Level 1
51 points

Best method to encrypt an external drive

It seems there are two basics methods to encrypt an external drive from macOS:


1) Using Disk Utility: https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/encrypt-protect-a-storage-device-password-dskutl35612/mac


2) Directly from Finder: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/protect-your-mac-information-with-encryption-mh40593/mac


Why would anyone ever choose option 1 if option 2 doesn't erase existing data? Are there benefits to going with option 1?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 29, 2020 10:14 AM

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User profile for user: Joseph Delaney
Joseph Delaney
User level: Level 4
1,066 points

Posted on Dec 29, 2020 12:25 PM

Disk Utility gives you more options, for instance if you need an HFS-formatted encrypted disk (the finder method will always use APFS so won't be compatible with older macOS versions), or if you want to create multiple partitions on the disk (maybe one encrypted, one not).


If you don't have any special reason to use Disk Utility, then just use the Finder.

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User profile for user: Joseph Delaney
Joseph Delaney
User level: Level 4
1,066 points

Dec 29, 2020 12:25 PM in response to jszrules

Disk Utility gives you more options, for instance if you need an HFS-formatted encrypted disk (the finder method will always use APFS so won't be compatible with older macOS versions), or if you want to create multiple partitions on the disk (maybe one encrypted, one not).


If you don't have any special reason to use Disk Utility, then just use the Finder.

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User profile for user: Joseph Delaney
Joseph Delaney
User level: Level 4
1,066 points

Dec 29, 2020 12:45 PM in response to jszrules

No, don't do that! Last time I checked, Windows could not read any of the Mac formats.


You would have to use the FAT or ExFAT formats (depending on big the drive is) in order to use the disk with Windows, but I don't think you can turn on encryption at the same time, at least not through Disk Utility.


I'm not sure what the solution is for cross-platform encrypted disks, but I think there are some software solutions that you can install on both Mac and Windows, or you can forget about encrypting the entire disk and go back to the old method of encrypting ZIP archives.

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User profile for user: jszrules
jszrules Author
User level: Level 1
51 points

Jan 12, 2021 4:20 PM in response to jszrules

I right-clicked the drive, selected Encrypt and entered a password. When I do that the disk "disappears" for about 5 minutes with no indication as to whether anything is encrypting. Then an error pops up saying the "disk cannot mount" or something to that effect and the disk reappears in Finder as if nothing happened. What should I look for?

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Best method to encrypt an external drive

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