Reveal progress of HDD encryption process?

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Level 1

31 points

Reveal progress of HDD encryption process?

I am in the middle of an encryption process right now for one of my external HDDs and it's taking a long time, but I only know it's working based on two criteria: firstly, that the HDD is working (the external light is blinking), and secondly that the HDD is not mounted (during the encryption process) but obviously active.

However, there is no clear indication of progress on the encryption process, it not mounted I can understand why, but I would expect there to be something?

Is there a hidden Terminal command that can reveal the progress of an the encryption process in real-time?

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), 16GB RAM, late 2011

Posted on Nov 12, 2017 11:26 PM

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Answer 1

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Nov 14, 2017 1:04 PM in response to John Galt

The disk unmounted itself as the process began, the only way I think it will mount is if I reconnect it, which I don't think would be good for the encryption process.

4TB took me around four days before, I think this will only last around a week.

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Answer 2

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Nov 14, 2017 7:45 PM in response to John Galt

Interesting. Every time that I have encrypted an external volume it has automatically dismounted and become inaccessible until the process had completed.

What method are you using, I right click and select the option "Encrypt ...<HDD name>"

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Answer 3

Nov 15, 2017 8:04 AM in response to Hamper

Hi Hamper,

In the past I've used Terminal to see the status or progress of a disk encryption.

Open Terminal

Type "diskutil cs list"

Find your drive in the list and look for something that states a status of the encryption process.

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Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

141,174 points

Nov 15, 2017 3:21 PM in response to John Galt

OK, that's what I did. The disk unmounts for a brief moment, after which it automatically mounted again.

A right click reveals "Encrypting ..." and the disk remains usable for all the usual actions.

After verifying that I used Disk Utility to erase it and chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) for its format. It was then immediately usable as an encrypted Time Machine backup disk.

So, no surprises. If yours is not doing that I have no explanation.

For what it's worth it's an OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro 2 TB triple interface model. I have other disks to test if need be.

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Answer 5

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Nov 16, 2017 3:39 PM in response to John Galt

I belive a time before the same thing did happen, I do recall being able to right click the HDD to witness the text "Encrypting...", but there no progress feedback on that menu.

This time it has no happened, it's been six days already, but I'll wait for the time it requires.

Every time I use the Terminal command to reveal the Core Storage it doesn't list the encryption progress at all, just what I pasted before. I still see the light flashing and have to assume it's working, but if it's not done in the next few days I may just restart the process until the HDD is recognised in macOS and then I can try to monitor it as suggested.

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Answer 6

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 1, 2017 2:09 PM in response to John Galt

I got a new HDD (sent the old 8TB back), which is a 2TB and performed the encryption method inside Disk Utility by selecting "OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)", over the usual right-click on the file, which seemed to achieve the encryption process in about 60 seconds.

What exactly is the difference between these two methods because one would take a lot longer than the other, it must be superficial encryption?

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Answer 7

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 1, 2017 3:19 PM in response to Hamper

A ha!

A very good website helped me out here:

http://krypted.com/mac-security/encrypting-os-x-mountain-lion/

In order for the disk to show up it must be converted to CoreStorage, else the "diskutil cs list" will not work. In order to achieve this one must be logged in as Administrator (for security reasons I don't by default) in order to convert the volume, but first you have to find out what the disk identifier is by typing "diskutil list" and taking note of the "disk?s?" number (i.e. not the GUID, nor the EFI).

With this info then convert with the following command (which will require you to type your password): "sudo diskutil corestorage convert disk?s?" (substitute the "?" with the numbers from the diskutil list command readout).

Now when right-clicking the volume and selecting Encrypt the HDD will remain and the process (shown as a percentage) will show on the following command in Terminal: "diskutil corestorage list".

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Answer 8

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 1, 2017 3:21 PM in response to Hamper

By the way, I waited blindly SEVENTEEN days for the 8TB HDD (over USB2) to encrypt, that's over two weeks!

I yanked the cable and RTM the HDD, I just got the replacement, it should be done by the new year, but at least I will have a percentage readout this time around.

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Answer 9

etresoft

Level 8

46,390 points

Dec 1, 2017 3:40 PM in response to Hamper

Hello Hamper,

Normally, when you perform the "encrypt disk" command, it encrypts the entire disk, including free space. That will take forever and a day. The drive has to be unmounted though.

What you just did was essentially the same thing. You created a new encrypted partition. This is how I setup all of my new hard disks.

The only difference between the two methods is the free space. If you are encrypting a disk that potentially had data on it, then if you didn't encrypt the free space, there could be unencrypted data left on the disk. But if this is a new disk drive, then it doesn't matter.

The old drive was probably fine. It sounds like it just wasn't mounted or something. Encryption will pause if the drive isn't mounted. Encryption will pause if the machine goes to sleep. That is why I never do the "encrypt disk" operation. I just re-format as encrypted and, as you can attest, it's done in 60 seconds.

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Answer 10

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 1, 2017 4:50 PM in response to etresoft

Don't tell me the process was on pause for seventeen days, I don't want to hear that. If I understand you correctly, the only thing that macOS did was to encrypt the existing data, leaving the free space? So it would create a secure partition that would encrypt on the fly?

Right now checking at 00:25 (an elapsed time of 1½hrs) the progress registers at 2%. Logically that would equate to 10% @ 15hrs (10 * 1.5 hours), thus: 10 * 15 hours = 6.25 days!

I know there are many variables (I set my computer to never sleep so the process was uninterrupted), and I will be using the HDD while encrypting (as you mentioned was possible before), so the time could increase, or perhaps decrease?

By this time scale (and there is no online calculator to figure out ETA, only known variables) it could be projected a completion time for an 8TB HDD at four times totalling 25 days?

That's a month, in working days!

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Answer 11

John Galt

Level 10

141,174 points

Dec 1, 2017 5:38 PM in response to Hamper

The last time I was motivated to measure it, it took a little over four days to encrypt a 2 TB USB2 hard disk drive. Extrapolating that to an 8 TB yields about what you are expecting.

That’s with the Mac set to “never sleep”.

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Answer 12

etresoft

Level 8

46,390 points

Dec 1, 2017 6:27 PM in response to Hamper

Hello again Hamper,

I can't tell you via an Internet forum anything about what may or may not have happened two weeks ago. I can just make logical deductions about what is supposed to happen.

At this point, I am not sure what is happening at all. You said above that you returned the old hard drive and got a new one, formatting it as encrypted. But now you are saying that it is reporting to be in progress.

So which is it? The only time you would ever see a progress is when you are encrypting or decrypting an existing drive. If you do a new format as encrypted, the encryption is instantaneous, because there is no data to encrypt. Any new data will be encrypted as it is written.

If you want to encrypt a new drive, you should always format as encrypted. Also, you are encrypting over USB 2.0. That is going to be your primary limitation. It will run extremely slowly. If your profile information is correct, you should have Thunderbolt on that 2011 iMac. Use a Thunderbolt drive. It will be much, much faster.

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Answer 13

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 5, 2017 10:14 PM in response to John Galt

I have recently finished encrypting a 2TB HDD the hard way i.e. all the blank space and it took roughly a total time of 3 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes:

~25% : 21 hours, 22 minutes

~30% : 1 day, 1 hour and 30 minutes

~50% : 1 day, 20 hours, 41 minutes

~60% : 2 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes

~70% : 2 days, 10 hours, 16 minutes

~80% : 2 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes

~90% : 3 days, 1 hour, 7 minutes

This was performed on an Silicone Power "Silicon Power Rugged Armor A85M" (2TB) Naturally the , over a USB2 connection for the full duration of the times shows. This was performed on my primary computer, with different demands made of it at different times, during night and day operations.

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