Ejecting drive thats under encryption conversion?

Thats whats interesting about it. It does not do anything conversion wise if formatted with an encrypted filesystem through diskutility if I check it with the diskutil command. I tried putting files in it but it still doesn't change the conversion. My question is why does Apple go with the conversion process on a bare drive even if nothing is in it if it can be done way faster if done through diskutility. For a 4TB drive it takes about 2 days to do if using Finder. I hope you arent bothered by my curiosity on this subject am glad that you seem to have an in depth knownledge about it.

I took some screenshots to show you.

Here it is formatted with an encrypted filesystem straight from diskutility. With this method it takes only a couple of seconds. Take note that is is fully secure (each block in encrypted status?) almost instantly.

Here it is formatted with a normal HFS filesystem through diskutility then encrypted by right clicking on the drive and selecting Encrypt on Finder. You can see that is is converting the drive block by block unlike the previous method. It also says that it is not fully secure yet until it finishes the conversion. If i leave it alone in this state it runs at about 1 minute per GB of conversion or about 0.6 Days per TB when running through Firewire 800.

What I did notice was that when encrypted through diskutility it is not revertible but when converted to an encrypted filesystem from HFS it can be reverted back according to the info above.

I dont think it is a failed conversion, more research shows that it simply is a "created" encrypted volume but not a "converted" one.

I found this while gooling about the revertible status

"Reversibility of encryption depends on whether you converted volume to encrypted one or created encrypted volume. So if you want the process to be reversible — create disk first, then encrypt it using

diskutil

Also on another site with someone having problems encrypting a previously decrypted drive

"

Observations

Conversion Status: Failed

If encryption was applied when the volume was created (typically: erasure with Disk Utility) then:

• there was no conversion forward
• conversion backward can not begin.

"

While his issue was different than anything I have (I dont seem to actually have any issues) someone elses answer shows that if you selected encrypted filesystem with disk utlity then no conversion happens but the drive is instantly encrypted but the drawback is you can never put it into a decrypted state without a reformat.

I am trying to encrypt some external drives and want to know the difference between using disk utility and selecting the file system as encrypted or formatting it as normal then right clicking the drive in finder and selecting encrypt.

The only thing I noticed was that using disk utility takes seconds while using the right click method takes hours and even days? My drive light will keep blinking like its writing something and using the terminal command "diskutil cs list" will show that it is converting the drive to encrypted status in the background but it is very slow even if the drive is empty.

So whats the difference and which is the better method?

Thats what I thought. So why does the one done through finder take so much longer and include a converting process even if the drive is empty? If I format the drive with an encrypted file system through diskutlity and do the "diskutil cs list" command it does not show the drive being encrypted but instead it just shows as being fully secure.

This is opposite of the Finder method where it will display the drive as not fully secure until the lengthy conversion process is done.

So how does the disk utility method do the encryption since it does it so much faster? Does it just label the drive as encrypted then encrypt data on the fly as its written to it?