Can you have your cake and eat it to? Safe and secure data?
Credit to Rene Ritchie, editor in chief at iMore, for making me realize something that should have been obvious: you don’t necessarily have to encrypt your backups. I know what you’re thinking, “But Danielle, you always tell us to encrypt everything.” Well, that’s true. You should definitely use encryption on your iPhone or Android device by enabling a strong password. Your internet traffic should also always be encrypted, either through HTTPS or VPN. However, you might want to think twice about your backups. At least consider the fact that you have more than one option.
What’s a backup for? It’s there so, when you lose your computer, you don’t lose everything on it. You don’t lose cherished memories, important documents, or precious, yet uncommitted code. A backup ensures that your computer is nothing more than a vessel for your digital life, not a single point of failure. Backing up your data is intelligent. But what if something terrible happens to your computer, and your backup is no good? You’re out of luck, everything would be lost. This can happen with encryption.
Why You Shouldn’t Encrypt the Whole Drive
Drives fail. That’s my primary reason for maintaining a regular backup. I’ve had countless hard drives fail on my or friends and family. Fortunately, I had everyone on a backup plan, or I was able to recognize the symptoms of a drive failure and create a backup before it died completely. But, what happens when you lose your computer and your backup drive fails? Well, if your backup is encrypted, even with your password, you’re likely out of luck. With a failed and encrypted hard drive, your drive is utterly useless.
However, if your drive was not encrypted, there’s good news! For a price, someone likely could pull a large amount of the information off the drive, depending on how much of it is left uncorrupted. Rejoice! Data recovery can be expensive, but if the data matters, it’s worth it. Besides, but what if that encrypted drive isn’t broken, what if you just forgot the password? What if it’s something you want to leave behind for loved ones who might not have access to your passwords?
Encrypt What Matters Only
Now, here’s what Rene and others have gotten wrong on the subject: this isn’t an all or nothing situation. You could use this simple guide to create a localized drive within a drive on your machine. This is essentially an encrypted folder where you could store your risqué photos, software, or important documents. Inside that encrypted folder, they’ll be safe from being stolen. You will lose them if your backup drive fails, but, hopefully, they’re things you can replace in other ways.
Why You Should Encrypt the Whole Drive
I tried to make the guide easy to follow, like I was showing my parents or grandparents how to do it. But, hey, not everyone can do it. That’s fine! So, you can’t create encrypted disk images to protect your most vulnerable data. You’re also not too afraid of losing all of your data if your encrypted drive fails. Maybe you’re using a solid state drive that rarely fails, or maybe you have two external backups, so you encrypt them both, knowing that the odds of both of them failing are incredibly slim. Maybe you just don’t want the hassle of managing multiple encrypted drives. Whatever your reason, you want to protect your content from thieves more than data loss.
This is when you encrypt your backup. If you’re not worried about data loss on your backups, and you’re more worried about any of your content getting out, then you’ll want to encrypt everything. That’s when you encrypt your backup. But, for most people, the only items you’ll really have to worry about will be your most secure documents. For those, you can create an encrypted disk image. By keeping an unencrypted backup and using encrypted disk images, you get to have your cake and eat it too: secure and safe data.