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Is Photos library encrypted on an external HDD?

M

MrMister111

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Original poster
Jan 28, 2009
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I've now had to add my Photos library to an external HDD as too big for internal drive.

This same external HDD, on a different partition, has time machine backup on, which is encrypted.

Is the photos library encrypted on an external HDD, or can it be? Just for wxayif the external HDD got stolen or lost then all my photos are on there, whereas if it was on my internal I'd at least have to password for the computer and could remote wipe it.

Thanks
 
You need to make sure second partition being used to store the photos is formatted to encrypted, then yes the images will be protected by the encryption.

Just turning on TM encryption is only going to encrypt that one partition and not the second.

I should add this is risky, since all your images and your backups are on one physical drive, so if that drive dies you lose everything. I would buy a second drive for the images and make sure it gets backed up to the TM drive.
 
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Weaselboy said:
You need to make sure second partition being used to store the photos is formatted to encrypted, then yes the images will be protected by the encryption.

Just turning on TM encryption is only going to encrypt that one partition and not the second.

I should add this is risky, since all your images and your backups are on one physical drive, so if that drive dies you lose everything. I would buy a second drive for the images and make sure it gets backed up to the TM drive.
Click to expand...

How's do I turn on the encryption for photos partition Omar?

I know it's a risk as such but I just don't want loads of external drives and messing.

This way it's one drive for photos and TM, and then there is iCloud photo library, and my other off-site backup service
 
Screen Shot 2019-09-11 at 1.51.51 PM.png

Just select the second (non TM) partition in Disk Util then click the erase button and select macOS Extended Journaled Encrypted and follow the steps. This will of course wipe any data on that partition.
 
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How long does it take to encrypt the TM drive? Its completed first backup to my new external drive, around 1Tb, and been encrypting the backup, according to TM, for about 12 hours and progress bar never moved!

I unplugged it, left a while, plugged in, did another small backup, and encrypting again, but its back to same stage of progress bar and taking an absolute age?
 
Can be a long time. Best to turn on encryption before putting data on it, as the encryption process ignores unused blocks.

That said, depends on what USB standard, disk speed, controller in the drive, vintage of Mac, etc. I've seen 3-4 days for USB 2 256GB volumes on older Macs.

"fdesetup status" command, if I recall correctly, will tell you progress. "diskutil cs list" command will as well. Can take a reading, come back a few minutes later, take another reading: figure out how much was encrypted, then calculate how long it will take for rest.
 
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Well been on overnight encrypting, the progress bar has never moved since I last posted. The external disk light is flcking though...?
 
Wish I'd known beforehand....I thought TM should have asked prior to intial backup, would have been better.

I'll see what state tonight, then start again. Do I just make the partition "Extended Journaled Encrypted" before doing TM backup? (Same for my Photos partition)?

If so I must have made the partition just Extended Journaled then?

Thanks again
 
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MrMister111 said:
Do I just make the partition "Extended Journaled Encrypted" before doing TM backup? (Same for my Photos partition)?
Click to expand...
Yes... exactly. Just select the partition then click erase and select that option. Do it once for each partition.

Sounds like you had just ext. journaled before.
 
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well another 12 hours and went from 16% to 23% so I've abandoned it! it was a tick box saying "encrypt backups" is this different to the disk being macOS Extended Journaled Encrypted?

I decided to reformat disk partition again, this time to macOS Extended Journaled Encrypted, and set TM away again...
 
NoBoMac said:
You should be OK now, as the TM backup will encrypt while it's doing its thing. Will be slowish, but not as slow as encrypting post backup.
Click to expand...
Well set away and did overnight and already done!! Thanks

Now to just copy over my nearly 1Tb photo library.... Already set partition at journaled encrypted!

On a side note I know TM did constant backups, is there a way to not do as many. Also is it ok for external USB drives to just be left plugged in all the time? Not give them a "rest" sometimes. Not always on my Mac so know when backups needed.

Thanks for help again all
 
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Have not done this myself, but in theory, can change how often Time Machine does backups. Need to be comfortable with command line.

Boot into Recovery, then from Terminal:

Code: 
csrutil disable

Reboot.

Then you will need to edit the following file: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-helper.plist

Look for the following, and adjust up/down the value (# of seconds):

Code: 
<key>Interval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>

Reboot back to Recovery, and from Terminal: csrutil enable.

Boot back as normal.

Guessing changes could get wiped out with any OS update, as that is MacOS's playground.
 
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