Test Machine Description (some sort of name like "Bob's G5"): Jon's MBP
Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Size: 96 with 37 GB available

Encryption Technique: FileVault

  • if other:
  • Version (if applicable):

Operating System with version: 10.4.7

How long did it take to configure initially? 5 in minutes
How long did the actual encryption take? 120 in minutes
How large is your Home Dir (FileVault) or Folder (EFS)? 26 in GB

How easy was the initial setup? (1 being trivial, 5 being very hard) 2

Did you set a key/password recovery method? Yes

  • which one: Master Password

Does the machine have a password to wake from sleep or screen saver? Yes

Did you run a backup before enabling encryption? Yes

  • what type of backup do you use: SuperDupr to external hard disk

Other comments about the setup:
The setup was straight forward, though the 2 hour encryption time, followed by additonal time spent deleteing the old Home Directory was a bit unexpected.

During the encryption, the system was entirely unusable. During the deletion of the old home dir, using the option to cancel after an hour resulted in a long delay. All in all the process took me 4.5 hours. I think we should recommend people move large non-sensitive files out of the home directory (like movies or virtual machine images) before enabling FileVault. They can then be moved back in afterwards with more incremental delay.

Things to note
  1. Initial encryption took a long time: 4.5 hours
  2. FileVault protected Home Folder treated as a single file by backup software (SuperDuper!) - caused extra challenges backing up and decreases incremental backup performance
    • Appears to need to be backed up from another account for SuperDuper! to actually backup the encrypted Home Folder.
  3. Dreamweaver Sites stored in the Home Folder are not found after FileVault enabled
    • I think this is because Dreamweaver uses an explicit unix path, rather than standard Apple file locations.  Still going to show up as a problem for our clients
  4. Recommend moving large (non-sensitive) files outside of the Home Folder before initial encryption to improve both the initial setup and the future backups.
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5 Comments

  1. Jonathan Hunt

    The first incremental backup after turning on FileVault took extremely long.  Usually it takes about 15 minutes to update all the changed files on the external hard drive with superdupr.  I suspect that all of the files in my Home Folder (about 26 GB) were marked as changed when they moved into the FileVault volume.  I'll pay attention to subsequent backup times to see if they are any better.  I'll also look at the disk on another machine and see if the files are encrypted or in the clear on the external disk.  An interesting test will be to boot the machine in target disk mode and see if I can see the files on another machine (I expect not).

  2. Jonathan Hunt

    Stopped 1st backup after 1:17 hours, had backed up 2.88GB only about 1.8 GB of 4.75 GB evaluated were up to date.  It had been at this point for a while...so I suspect it may be backing up the full 26 GB file as one.  (sad)

  3. Jonathan Hunt

    I still haven't completed a backup since enabling FileVault for my Home Folder.  The mounted (encrypted) home folder is treated by SuperDuper! as a single file, so inevidibly my backup software always sees it as changed and is trying to backup the full 26GB each time (including this first time).

    I've given up on trying to do the backup with everything in the FileVault, so I moved a bunch of multi-media files (about 18 GB out of my Home Folder (the encrypted FileVault home folder) to the root of the drive.  I ran into one failed backup because the drive I was backing up to only had 120GB on it and SuperDuper was copying the new files before cleaning up any old files and I ran out of space.  I cleaned up some the same big multi-media files from the back up drive and am now doing another backup.  This seems to be doing better after 40 minutes, but appears to stop (though I know through iPulse that it is still transferring lots of data.  I suspect that it has gotten to the encrypted home folder file (mounted) and is backing that all up right now.  The way SuperDuper! reports back progress is after the file(s) is completely backed up so it appears to stop making progress, but at least the elapsed time progresses and it isn't hung.

  4. Jonathan Hunt

    I finally completed my backup after moving the multi-media files out of the Home Folder.  It took 1:07 hours, so not too bad for a backup.  I suspect future backups will take about as long as anytime I log in to the machine, something is inevitably going to change in my Home Folder.

  5. Jonathan Hunt

    I looked around the external drive that should have a copy of my local drive as backup via SuperDuper! and couldn't find the FileVault protected Home Folder.  Upon reading the help file for SuperDuper! I think it won't back up the file (Home Folder and all its encrypted contents) unless you are logged out and using another account to run backup.

    From SuperDuper! Help:
    If you're using FileVault, your home folder and all its data is stored in a
    single, large file that's open and active when you're logged in. Because
    of this, you should create a non-FileVault account for use with
    SuperDuper! Then, log out of your FileVaulted account, into this new
    account, and run SuperDuper! from there. This ensures that the
    special FileVault volume is put away and backed up cleanly.
    We should look at how other very common backup software handle this case and will need to revise recommendations.