Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
I just bought a MacBook Pro, my first laptop. I was planning to enable FilaVault on it, since theft and snoopery are bigger concerns with portables.
I've heard horror stories of the entire encrypted disk image becoming unreadable with FileVault, but I figured Hey, that's what backups are for. Time Machine makes it practically a non-issue. Except....Time Machine doesn't work with FileVault. At least, not the way I had hoped. It doesn't back up my files directly, only the encrypted disk image they reside in, and then only when I'm logged out. This is a problem because:
A) I only habitually log out about once a month.
B) One of the main draws of Time Machine is that it backs up throughout the day, or whenever I ask it to, without greatly disrupting my work.
C) Backing up a disk image for every little change is wasteful (even if it does use 20MB bands).
This leaves me looking for alternatives, either to FileVault or Time Machine.
I've heard of encfsvault, and just recently learned of a derivative called tmvault which is specifically designed to work with Time Machine. However, I'm a little reluctant to go third-party for this, because I'm afraid an OS update might render by entire Home folder unusable, and I'm not sure they will be actively developed. Has anyone used either of these? I'd love to hear your experience.
Perhaps the simpler approach would be to use something besides Time Machine to back up. I've used Carbon Copy Cloner in the past, but only for on-demand full clones, not regular incremental backups. I'm open to suggestions on backup software/routines. Free is always preferable, but if a pay-for option is just that much better I'll consider it. I'm not opposed to getting down and dirty with the command line; I DO want something that can automatically back up when I connect a backup drive (possibly a shared folder from another Mac, but this is not necessary), and also back up on command.
I'm not overly concerned about encrypting my backups. I just want to have reliable backups and an encrypted laptop. In fact, I might feel better if my backups WEREN'T encrypted.
Any ideas?
I've heard horror stories of the entire encrypted disk image becoming unreadable with FileVault, but I figured Hey, that's what backups are for. Time Machine makes it practically a non-issue. Except....Time Machine doesn't work with FileVault. At least, not the way I had hoped. It doesn't back up my files directly, only the encrypted disk image they reside in, and then only when I'm logged out. This is a problem because:
A) I only habitually log out about once a month.
B) One of the main draws of Time Machine is that it backs up throughout the day, or whenever I ask it to, without greatly disrupting my work.
C) Backing up a disk image for every little change is wasteful (even if it does use 20MB bands).
This leaves me looking for alternatives, either to FileVault or Time Machine.
I've heard of encfsvault, and just recently learned of a derivative called tmvault which is specifically designed to work with Time Machine. However, I'm a little reluctant to go third-party for this, because I'm afraid an OS update might render by entire Home folder unusable, and I'm not sure they will be actively developed. Has anyone used either of these? I'd love to hear your experience.
Perhaps the simpler approach would be to use something besides Time Machine to back up. I've used Carbon Copy Cloner in the past, but only for on-demand full clones, not regular incremental backups. I'm open to suggestions on backup software/routines. Free is always preferable, but if a pay-for option is just that much better I'll consider it. I'm not opposed to getting down and dirty with the command line; I DO want something that can automatically back up when I connect a backup drive (possibly a shared folder from another Mac, but this is not necessary), and also back up on command.
I'm not overly concerned about encrypting my backups. I just want to have reliable backups and an encrypted laptop. In fact, I might feel better if my backups WEREN'T encrypted.
Any ideas?
