Preparing for HS and APFS: Encryption

[T-Bob]

Using the beta I have enabled FileVault with APFS but am wondering if this will be necessary as APFS is meant to feature additional encryption options. Perhaps it would be as beneficial to only encrypt certain areas of the disk instead of the whole partition, which would also allow faster boot.

Is this an option? I can't see per file or folder encryption options currently (like EFS on NTFS).

 

[Crash0veride]

Th encryption is hardware accelerated and I can't see any (meaningful) speed performance advantage for boot/usage in turning it off. Here's an old test of comparison from 2011. http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/10/filevault-2-benchmarks-disk-encryption-faster-mac-os-x-lion/ Boot is the biggest difference. Hardware acceleration/CPU updates have probably made this more negligible since 2011 though.

Also giving someone partial drive access could give them enough breadcrumbs that partial encryption would be less meaningful.

 

[T-Bob]

I mean that using FileVault slows down boot because you have to first decrypt the drive before the boot can continue.

So right now I'm not sure how APFS encryption makes a real life difference.

 

[Chrysaor]

Is it better to disable FileVault before upgrading to HS and use APFS encryption?

 

[Crash0veride]

Is it better to disable FileVault before upgrading to HS and use APFS encryption?

FileVault in HS just uses apfs encryption with a GUI the same way FileVault in Sierra just uses hfj+ encryption with a GUI.