Syncing to an encrypted volume (veracrypt full disk encryption vs container)

Technical Questions
#1

I’ve just started using insync and I’d like to sync my entire gdrive (~2TB) to an external encrypted HDD (in case I lose the HDD and it falls in strangers hands).

I intend to use this HDD on ubuntu and windows, so I’m formatting it NTFS and will use VeraCrypt.

Theoretically it should be fine, but I wanted to check if anyone has done this and if there are any gotchas? Particularly I’m interested in:

  1. if the encrypted volume is not available (e.g. HDD not mounted, or HDD is available but volume not decrypted yet), will insync decide that I’ve deleted all of my files and delete everything from google drive? (Something similar happened with Dropbox once when it couldn’t find the dropbox folder!)
  2. Is it better to use full disk encryption (my preference at this point), vs creating an encrypted container, and placing the insync folder inside this volume?

(Just to reiterate: I’m not looking to store encrypted files in the cloud, i’m looking to encrypt my local insync folder)

Cheers,

#2

I’ve been using Insync to sync VeraCrypt encrypted drive for 1.5 years now. There’s no problem whatsoever.

Insync is aware when you have synced folders on external drives, and will automatically stop syncing these folders when they disappear, and also warn you about the disappearance.

It doesn’t make a difference to Insync whether you use a container or full disk encryption. But I always prefer FDE, because I find container to be more clunky.

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#3

Just my 5 cents.

My experience with syncing files inside a Veracrypt volume tells me it can be very inefficient in terms of keeping local and remote in sync.

Personally, I create encrypted filesystem on remote (i.e., encfs, cryfs, securefs etc), thus making my cloud-based content more or less protected from possible leak and/or prying eyes.

At the moment, I am syncing files inside encrypted home folder (ecryptfs) to Google Drive, it works with appropriate speed.

#4

This depends on your use case. If you want files in the cloud to be easily accessible and portable, then an encrypted filesystem in the cloud doesn’t work.

Not sure why VeraCrypt is inefficient for you. In terms of performance, it’s on par with a normal unencrypted HDD for me.

#5

thanks for the tips. I’ll go ahead and try FDE.

Cheers,

1 Like
#6

Great to hear, @Memo_Akten! Let me know if you encounter any issues. :slight_smile:

And thank you once again for the awesomeness, @Hawk!