Encrypt existing time capsule sparse bundles in Mountain Lion ?

Hi Lapastenague (and Pondini),

I've seen both links you refer to. Pondini is very thourough, and if I follow FAQ 31, and B.T.W. I just updated the retina to 10.8.4, the rest is still on 10.8.3, I can select Time Capsule's internal disk (Data is the one I want) under Available Disks. Data under Backup Disks is dimmed. If I follow you correctly, the Available disks are seen as network drives, and the Backup Disk (Data) is internal. So probably Data, Time Capsule's disk, is probably seen as both internal and networked.

If I selelct the networked Data disk, I'm offered the three choices I mentioned before, but I don't see the confirmation, nor the set password dialogs as FAQ 31 points out.

As per the second link, I guess my case is probably the same, but Time Capsule is not mentioned, Time Machine is. Making me think it refers to an external drive connected to a Mac being used as a Time Machine back up.

That's why, after dwelling around the web and getting dizzy with the complexity and variety on the subject, I opted to find out in this group for a better option. And thanks by the way for your fast interest and effort.

I'm up to almost 2 TB of backup stuff, so moving that to an external drive is worh thinking about. I will sit down and lean down my backups. I use SuperDuper as alternate, and found it the best option to restore a system those very few times it was needed. Time Machine is my safety net for those rare cases I need to recover something gone. And SuperDuper is the other life saver if something goes wrong, or I have to replace a disk.

Pondini wrote:

guido p wrote:

. . .

Data under Backup Disks is dimmed.

Yeah, that's not one of Apple's better windows. 😟 It just lists the current destination(s) there. If you select it in the Available Disks section, it will re-select it, and should give you the Encrypt option.

If I follow you correctly, the Available disks are seen as network drives, and the Backup Disk (Data) is internal.

They should all be treated the same.

Hmm. Looks like it won't just encrypt the backups "on the fly", like it will on an external. I don't use encryption, but would swear I tried that during beta testing, and it worked. I'll try to test it again and post back . . . will take a while, obviously.

As per the second link, I guess my case is probably the same, but Time Capsule is not mentioned, Time Machine is. Making me think it refers to an external drive connected to a Mac being used as a Time Machine back up.

Yes. In the last post, where he says he went into Get Info and saw it was encrypted -- you can't do that on a network drive, and the network drive isn't encrypted anyway; on a network, your backups are in a sparse bundle disk image on the drive. That's what gets encrypted.

Worse, if you do have an encrypted disk image, Get Info won't tell you that! I reported that as a bug during the beta; they said it was "working as expected," so I filed an enhancement request which, of course, is still open.

EDIT: Just realized I had an expendable set of backups on a partition on a network drive, so tried encrpting them, as you did. No dice; same message. 😟

I'll update my page accordingly.

Message was edited by: Pondini

Hi Pondini,

Thanks for your time 🙂

So, the best course of action would be to erase and encrypt ? That was my impression, and just wanted to know if I'm right, and of course if there is a work around like moving the expandable set of backups to another drive, encrypt Time Capsule, and copy back into the encrypted Time Capsule / Machine.

And before screwing things up, and kicking my butt for it, I wanted to hear if the process is more complicated than a Finder copy as I feel it is, and find out that Time Machine won't recognize the backups.

So perhaps I will keep my backups the way they are if this issue gets complicated.

Of course it could shed some light to the subject as advice for future users having to decide to encrypt or not encrypt right at the beginning of their Time Machining.

One more thing that keeps coming to mind, and probably something to consider:

If Time Capsule was set up a couple of years ago (I'd had to dig that info) with a previous OS X like Lion or Snow Leopard, has the disk image creation part changed / improved with new OS's ? I'm probably raising a lot of smoke, and the issue could be right under our nose if the disk needs to be reformatted under Mountain Lion now. I get the feeling, somewhere down the road we would have been advised to do so.

Well, that might actually work, but will take a very long time to copy it twice.

The complication here is, network backups aren't in a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive. They're in a sparse bundle disk image instead. That's what's encrypted (or not).

What you could try is:

1. Connect via Ethernet
2. Copy the existing sparse bundle to another drive.
3. Delete the original.
4. Start an encrypted backup.
5. When the new, encrypted sparse bundle is created, cancel the backup.
6. Mount the new sparse bundle
7. Open the disk image
8. Delete the Backups.backupdb folder in the disk image
9. Mount the old sparse bundle in another Finder window
10. Open the disk image
11. Drag the Backups.backupdb folder from the old sparse bundle to the new one

Be careful; both sparse bundles will have the same name, as with both disk images. Do not try to change them.

I suspect that will work, eventually, but no guarantees. I wouldn't do it myself, except perhaps with a small set of test backups.

That technique does work to convert backups made locally into a set that can be used on a network, or vice-versa, so it ought to, but I've never tried it.

You're right Pondini, sounds like a lot of trouble.

And having 3 Macs, sounds I should do it on each one.

Actually I could try the Mini backup, since I have it as a media server with tons music, and its corresponding SuperDuper backup. The Time Machine backup on this one is just redundant to the iTunes music, so having it on SuperDuper, I feel safer.

But I can try a swap just for that particular Mac, and let you know what happens. Hoping it doesn't screw the other two backups of course.

I wired the house with two ethernet cat5e cables at the time to all rooms, so I can hook up two ethernets or phones as needed. So it won't be a wireless connection.

Ok, I'm half way there...

An almost 200Gb backup copied in about 16 hours.

On the fly encryption like FileValut 2 would be so much appreciated.

Be back with final results.

Ok Pondini.

It Worked 🙂

The copy from external disk to the new encrypted sparse bundle was faster. It started in the evening and by the next morning it was done when I woke up.

Apparently it works. I went into TimeMachine and could at least see the oldest and first backup (2012) on the time-space Star Trek window.

I would say that purely as an experiment it worked and it could be done.

You can encrypt an unencrypted backup under Mountain Lion.

The bottom question is the machine effort and time invested. I tested a 200Gb backup. Time Capsule worked hard twice, as it does on your first backup. A desktop like a Mac Mini worked hard too. I would personally think twice about stressing a MacBook Pro 17 Santa Rosa. Maybe the new breed like a quad core MacBook Pro retina, now a monster, can do it no sweat. Turning on File Vault on each Mac was abysmal. A newer Mac is obviously better than its predecessors, you feel it every time

As a personal advice, take the decision to encrypt or not to encrypt when you start to backup with Time Machine. Doing it later, as I did, is a nice long weekend with a spare drive at hand.

That's of course until Apple comes up with on the fly encryption.

Pondini takes all the credit for his thorough and knowledgeable site on the subject. Thanks again.