I'm getting my Macbook Pro ready for the Mavericks update and one of the recommendations for a Snow Leopard user is to turn off File Vault which I just did.
It was stupid for me to turn it on to begin with but I figured don't mess with the settings, I never had a major problem so I left it on figuring that if somebody stole my computer they could not get my information.
I always thought that File Vault only encrypted and decrypted things upon start up and shut down and in no way it slowed your computer down during use but I think I was way off as I'm noticing how much faster it is with File Vault turned off and I think it encrypts and decrypts as you use the program, is that correct?
Anyway for the few sensitive documents I have on my computer, I will put them in a separate encrypted folder and leave FileVault off. But as for the possibility of theft, if I set a strong master log in password and somebody steals my computer, will that protect my data and force them to reboot with a new installation disk if they want to use the computer? Or is there a sneaky way they can get the password from an unprotected place?
Is a strong master password enough or is the only 100 percent way of securing your information is to use File Vault and have a master password in the event of theft?
Finally I have one question about Time Machine, since I was using File Vault I had to log off in order to back up my entire drive through Time Machine but instead of only using the GB's that I actually used, the external drive was showing that each time I backed up the computer, it was taking the entire hard drive space, in other words I have only used 20 gb's with a 160 gb drive, instead of saying 20 gb's used, it would show 160 and then 320. I read on one website you had to use disc utility and eject the external drive to avoid this but I could not never figure out how to properly do this but since I won't be using File Vault again, that might solve the problem.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
It was stupid for me to turn it on to begin with but I figured don't mess with the settings, I never had a major problem so I left it on figuring that if somebody stole my computer they could not get my information.
I always thought that File Vault only encrypted and decrypted things upon start up and shut down and in no way it slowed your computer down during use but I think I was way off as I'm noticing how much faster it is with File Vault turned off and I think it encrypts and decrypts as you use the program, is that correct?
Anyway for the few sensitive documents I have on my computer, I will put them in a separate encrypted folder and leave FileVault off. But as for the possibility of theft, if I set a strong master log in password and somebody steals my computer, will that protect my data and force them to reboot with a new installation disk if they want to use the computer? Or is there a sneaky way they can get the password from an unprotected place?
Is a strong master password enough or is the only 100 percent way of securing your information is to use File Vault and have a master password in the event of theft?
Finally I have one question about Time Machine, since I was using File Vault I had to log off in order to back up my entire drive through Time Machine but instead of only using the GB's that I actually used, the external drive was showing that each time I backed up the computer, it was taking the entire hard drive space, in other words I have only used 20 gb's with a 160 gb drive, instead of saying 20 gb's used, it would show 160 and then 320. I read on one website you had to use disc utility and eject the external drive to avoid this but I could not never figure out how to properly do this but since I won't be using File Vault again, that might solve the problem.
Thanks for any help you can give me.