encrypting clone
 

Hi, I've had a look through the manual and found this answer in a search here..."if you don't format the backup drive encrypted and Smart Update to it, it's not encrypted"

But I'm still am not sure. Mainly I want to end up with a bootable clone that is also encrypted.

According to the latest manual, I'm told to have a separate cloning account to make an encrypted clone, but I don't really understand that because the entire computer is encrypted, so if I'm cloning from a different account the computer has to be encrypted to get in.

Is it possible to have a bootable clone that is encrypted, or is the above quote mean to imply that the clone volume has to somehow be encrypted after it's cloned.

thanks

If you have an existing copy, select its volume in Finder, Control+click and choose "Encrypt". That should work fine. Future copies should be Smart Updates.

Does that mean that SD can update while decrypting on the fly? Or do I first unlock it before smart updating? Also is this the same level of encryption as file vault? Also just to be clear, when you say 'an existing copy' do you mean an already prepared clone, that I then encrypt?

thx

You should indeed be able to just encrypt an existing copy. Don't do it mid-copy. And when the drive is mounted, it's being encrypted/decrypted by the system, at a low level. It's the same as FV2.

I have just discovered that I am unable to encrypt a bootable clone because it does not contain a recovery partition. How strange is that. I've researched this on the web and it appears to be a big technical PITA to get a recovery partition on it.

Would it be possible for SD to have an option to clone the recovery partition over to a bootable clone so that it would be possible to simply encrypt it from the Finder?

Also when cloning a FV2 hard drive does the System decrypt everything on the fly as SD calls for it?

It's actually easy to get a recovery volume on a drive. Boot from the backup, then reinstall the OS on the drive from the App Store. That'll recreate a recovery volume.

You mean I reinstall the OS over the top of the clone? Sorry that I'm not getting this fully. I don't mind completely redoing the clone if there's a easier way to do this.

Yes, that's what I mean. Simply reinstall the OS on top of the backup.

OK thanks, that went well.

Great! Glad to hear it.

Wouldn't re-installing the OS onto the clone have the effect of 'down-grading' OS updates that have been applied such as Security Updates?

The OS version downloaded from the app store usually reflects the "current" version of the OS. If not, it's easy enough to run software update to reapply any patches released after the version was released.