Best method to encrypt an external drive

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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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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Joseph Delaney

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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Answer 2

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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Answer 3

jszrules Author

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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Answer 4

jszrules Author

Level 1

51 points

Dec 29, 2020 12:36 PM in response to Joseph Delaney

Thank you. So if I wanted the drive to be readable on Windows, as well, I'd have to use the Disk Utility method to make it Mac OS Extended Journaled rather than APFS, correct?

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Answer 5

HWTech

Level 9

60,284 points

Dec 29, 2020 1:39 PM in response to Joseph Delaney

VeraCrypt is a third party multi OS option to encrypt an entire drive.

GPG is a free and open source multi OS option to encrypt files & folders.

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Answer 6

jszrules Author

Level 1

51 points

Feb 2, 2021 4:03 PM in response to jszrules

After restarting and reconnecting, I started the encryption via the finder neatly 24 hours ago and it seems to still be going... is that normal for 1TB (used, 4TB total)?

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Answer 7

HWTech

Level 9

60,284 points

Feb 2, 2021 6:05 PM in response to jszrules

Yes it is normal for encryption to take a day or more with larger drives.

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Best method to encrypt an external drive

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