Bitlocker question

atomichybrid

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Hello there!

I have gone and upgraded my laptop hard drive to an SSD one and must say its a dream. My issue is that the SSD is quite limited in space, so I have purchased a 4tb external drive to compensate it. I was thinking of doing the bitlock encryption on the external for private files and important documents. Obviously bitlocking 4TB HDD will take forever, so I was thinking of partitioning the external and bitlock that small volume.

Is this a wise thing to do? Also if youre bitlocking on a new empty hard drive would it be faster encrypt as there are no files to encrypt? I know its dependent of the hard drive size but generally it would be quicker to encrypt an empty vs one with content. Right?

I'm open to other solutions too since I work on the laptop most of the time I was hoping to have the setup all there.

Cheers
 
why not just encrypt a folder instead of a hole partition?
Windows have an inbuilt encryption feature.
You can right click on a folder, chose properties. Then in general click advanced.
Then you can chose both encrypt and compress. SO it will save space and be encrypted.
On a 4TB drive i would not compress it to save space. It will take longer to access the files.
Just the encryption should be fine
 
Thanks for the quick response BikerEcho,

So if I encrypt the files in the external hard drive and if it was plugged to another computer, it will be unreadable? If that is the case would there be any flexibility to unencrypt it on the other machine, suppose if my laptop dies? Im not looking to compress my files I would like to have quick access with them.

The idea that I was going with Bitlocker was that I make a 500GB partition and Bitlock that part of the partition and store the sensitive files in there. Like a safe box (500GB partition) and Bitlocker serves as the locking mechanism with the password being the key, thats how I understood it. If this was connected to another computer then it will be locked since it requires a password. If my whole concept of understanding Bitlocker is incorrect please let me know.

Cheers
 
When you encrypt a folder with Windows included feature the computer will ask you to backup a key. The key is already installed on your computer, so you can access the folder as it wasn't encrypted. However computers that doesn't have this key wont have access to the folder. So if another computer should have access to the folder they should run the backup key. (they key is protected with a password, so the user on the other computer have to know that password aswell as having the key itself).
I doubt that this feature can lock out people who knows what they are doing... but it's a fast setup and fast and easy usage of encrypted files. This is a good way to lock folders so other "normal" people can't access them.
 
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I suggest you test it first on a usb pen.
Have an image inside a folder. Encrypt the folder and see how it works.
Try to access the image on another computer, when that fails, try to install the key.
Then you know how to use the software for sure.
 
Okay does repartitioning an external harddrive have any negative impact? Like the 4TB hard drive will be split into 3TB and 1TB. The 1TB will have bitlocker while the 3TB works like normal and can have open access, where as the 1 TB will require a password.

If this compromises speed, how much does it reduce down to?

Cheers
 
But i highly doubt it will have any effect. But i don't don't know how bit locker works. I have never used it
 
Well, I want it to work right so I dont have any funny business along the way. I think it should be doable in this case with bitlocker. on one partition whereas the other is normal. Also I read on some other forum that it takes quite a while to bitlock large sizes, some say it took them 36hrs to bitlock a 1TB and some say 12 hours. If you started encrypting and empty partition I would expect to have a shorter amount of time? Or it doesnt matter since it would go sector by sector? If I can get clarification on that matter that would be great and I dont want to gamble on encrypting it if will take a long time since I move my laptop from work to home.

Cheers
 
I've seen how it works and it looks like a fabulous software, but there seems to be an end of support on thier website and the version they have available is for decrypting, I believe it was 7.2. I was hoping for native support like the Windows OS, I would check out Truecrypt again and see if I can sample some older version, also there seems to be some security vulnerability is this due to the end of support?
 
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