TrueCrypt - HUGE Changes in New Version

Hello,

I did not wish my PERSONAL regard to data integrity to become a trend. This works for me. It does not mean it's globally true or applicable.

As I have told gkweb, the chance of a single drive holding 500GB failing is exponentially higher than 100 5GB DVDs holding that same data, which encrypted can be a lot tricker to extract in case of partial hardware failure ... but you can read the pleasant exchange of thoughts some posts above.

That's all. Backup is always necessary. I would not dream of having some of my stuff encrypted only - regardless of TC or any other software.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

I'd say that for most people the idea of burning 100 dvds is out of the question. Also it's not exactly flexible for data that chang much over time. I wouldn't even consider this because of the hassle. Also encrypting these DVDs doesn't seem to add much risk.

This is why most people these days use either online storage or external hard-drives. It's done on the fly and is usually pretty invisible to the user.

Re: external drives - I think the chance of both the drive in your PC and the external drive failing are pretty slim....unless there is a major physical reason like a fire which destroys everything. For this reason I'd suggest backing up really crucial data online. Personally I backup onto an encrypted USB drive once a week and store this in a safe in the house. I also store my family photos (important and unreplaceble data to me) in Picassa online (free and reasobably integrated into Picassa photosuite anyway). This way I can deal with a drive failure, a moderate fire and the more common theft of the PC.

You are right that encrypted drives are likely to be harder (if not impossible) to recover if certain faults arise. However again I'd say the chances of both encrypted drives failing at the same moment are slim so I wouldn't be worried about this risk myself. Other problems are more likely like accidentally backing up incorrectly and finding you're backup isn't what you thought it was etc - problems that occur with or without encryption.