Does Time Machine Encrypt Data Before Sending To Time Capsule?
When does Time Machine encrypt? I know the backup itself is encrypted on the Time Capsule, but I'm worried my data may be exposed when being sent over the internet. As Time Machine is "preparing the backup" does it also encrypt the files that are being sent? I have my Time Capsule in a different location set up as an AFP server so it is not located within my LAN.
Does Time Machine Encrypt Data Before Sending To Time Capsule?
Yes, if you have selected the option to encrypt your Time Machine backup when you select the disk to receive the backups.
No, if you haven't.
The encryption process is slow, so backups are probably going to take at least twice as much time or more when you do choose this option.
I know the backup itself is encrypted on the Time Capsule
As far as I know and have tested, this is not the case. The backups are password protected, but that is it.
Does Time Machine Encrypt Data Before Sending To Time Capsule?
Yes, if you have selected the option to encrypt your Time Machine backup when you select the disk to receive the backups.
No, if you haven't.
The encryption process is slow, so backups are probably going to take at least twice as much time or more when you do choose this option.
I know the backup itself is encrypted on the Time Capsule
As far as I know and have tested, this is not the case. The backups are password protected, but that is it.
Thanks for the reply; I do have it set to encrypt (and yes it takes forever). I guess I was assuming the password protected backups were encrypted, but that doesn't matter anyway, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't transmitting my data over the internet without encryption. Thanks for the prompt and detailed answer. Cheers!
I would be very careful of doing TM backups over internet.
You are very likely to break the backup.
Apple used to have clear instructions not to do backups remotely.. when they updated documents they did remove it the warning.. but I think it still applies.
Any break in the backup will leave the TM inprogress and can easily corrupt the entire backup.
Also issues with encrypted backup when it actually comes to a restore are well worth considering.
Time Machine restore does not recognize sparsebundle password
Interesting; I wonder why it makes a difference whether it is remote or local? What do you mean by "break" the backup? Do you mean if it gets interrupted due to a disconnect in service? I have mine backup only at 2am every 24 hours with the TimeMachineEditor app. When I look at the files on the remote Time Capsule they seem to be separate and organized by backup date, not just one large file, so do you mean that a singe backup session could get corrupted and as such I could have trouble accessing the files from that particular backup? That does sound like it could lead to bad news, but I feel more comfortable having a backup in a remote location so if there is some sort of natural disaster or a fire my files will be a safe distance away. I used to use Carbonite but found it unreliable and gave me a false sense of security thinking all my files were backed up when in fact they sneakily weren't backing up certain media files and it wasn't obvious until you dug deeper into the folders. Maybe I need to keep this time machine backup the way it is and then employ a second Time Machine backup to another local drive in case?
Ok.. using a single backup a day at low usage time on the internet is going to help.. but the internet connection can go down.. and not recover.. when that happens the backup stops with inprogress file half finished. This will at least bind up the TM backup until the next time.
You can manually fix it.. see A10 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
However it can also happen at critical point where the actual files are being sorted into the backup.. TM is a very complex backup mechanism and there is a lot of to and fro between client and backup .. and over internet this can be corrupted easily.
I also think encryption makes this 10x worse.
I am just not sure where the encryption takes place.. ie is the TM sending encrypted info .. that would be difficult..
Or is the encryption taking place on the final step of adding the files into the backup..
Pondini says you can encrypt an existing backup on a local drive.. but not on a network drive.
Here is where the details are above my paygrade.. why the difference??
If it can encrypt a local existing backup where is that taking place.. on the local drive.. ?? But it cannot do it on network because??
Having a remote backup is excellent.
Using TM is less than excellent.
I use Carbon Copy Cloner. It is rsync based.. whatever you use I think using something based on good old unix command line utility like rsync is the way to go..
But I have no experience with it over internet..
Doing a local TM backup and a remote CCC backup would be worth a try.. It is easy enough to check if the backup works...
Does Time Machine Encrypt Data Before Sending To Time Capsule?
