basic drive/file encryption question

[npish]

I'm hoping to get some suggestions as to the best methods for encrypting data on a drive. I have certain documents that I've encrypted at a file-level that require a password upon opening the file, and I realize NTFS has built-in support, but I'm wondering what approaches people typically employ for, say, encrypting the contents of an entire external drive, as I have several at this point and if one-- or of course my beloved T60p itself-- were to be stolen, it could be bad news.

I know next to nothing on the topic, and I figured I'd tap into the infinite wisdom of the users on this board to get some suggestions Any open/freeware options would be preferred.

Thanks much for any insight.

[Superego]

I would recommned looking at TrueCrypt. It's a good open-source encryption program that can create a virtual encrypted disk, enrcypt a partition, or encrypt entire disk. If you decide to encrypt the entire external drive, understand that you're going to see a performance hit. Often people go with full disk-encryption hard drives if they want an entire device encrypted; all the encryption is done at the hardware level rather than in software. The downside to this is that you'd have to buy such a hard drive (they generally cost more than their non-encrypted counterparts), and it sounds like you'd rather stick to a software solution.

I guess it comes down to your size requirements. You won't notice a huge slowdown if you encrypt an entire external drive and only have a few files on it that you don't access frequently. If you expect to encrypt thousands of files and be constanly using them, then you'll notice. What I do is create a vritual encrypted disk and pick a size and password. You can set the size to whatever you want, just know that you can't resize it later, so I just set it to something like 2 or 4 GB. It's bascially just a container file that mounts as a disk after you enter your password.

Hope that helps.

[npish]

thanks much for the helpful reply, Superego; so I'm assuming once data is encrypted, access operates via password? I'm curious if, for example, I encrypt several specific directories on a removable USB drive and try to access those files on a different computer, will I be able to just enter a password and open them that way?

thanks again for the info-- I'll definitely check out True Crypt.

[Superego]

npish,

Yes once you create a TrueCrypt volume you will access it with a password (you can also use a keyfile). Just to be clear, you don't actually encrypt existing directories; you create encrypted container files (that will function just like directories) and then move your files into them. I know it's a small detail, but I don't want there to be any confusion.

To access the files on another computer, I'll point you to this section of the TrueCrypt user manual. Basically you create your encrypted volumes on a USB, add your files to the volumes, and then add the TrueCrypt executable to the USB drive (not in the encrypted volumes).

If you encrypt the entire USB drive, you won't be able to add the TrueCrypt executable so you'll need TrueCrypt already installed. However, it sounds like you're just looking to create a few encrypted volumes.

[npish]

got it... totally makes sense; thanks again.