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Time Machine Encryption Problem

I am encrypting a Western Digital 3TB external drive on my Mac desktop using Time Machine. This is a 2015, Retina 5k, i7 Mac with 32gb of memory running OS 10.13.1. I have been using this backup drive for daily backups, but had never encrypted it, so thought it would be a good idea. Well, crap! It has been encrypting for 16 hours now and is only at 11% completed! Is this because it is not an empty external drive or is there a problem?

I tried to stop this process by deleting the latest backup, but I still cannot stop the encryption (I am unable to uncheck the box). Should I just let the thing run and finish the encryption? I do have secondary backups, so am not overly concerned about losing data, but this is my daily backup drive and has the most, so I would prefer not to do anything to lose the data on it.

Suggestions?

Hello torchlite,

Encrypting a disk that has already been used takes a long time. It has to encrypt the entire 3 GB, including free space because it likely contains deleted, but recoverable files. Even encrypting a relatively small internal SSD takes a long time. If you make the drive much bigger, put it on a slow external interface, and make it mechanical, it becomes many times slower.

If you want to keep your backups, you just have to wait it out. In the future, whenever you get a new drive, reformat it as encrypted right away. That only takes a few seconds and then you're done. Since the drive is new, there is no existing data to worry about.

Hello torchlite,

Encrypting a disk that has already been used takes a long time. It has to encrypt the entire 3 GB, including free space because it likely contains deleted, but recoverable files. Even encrypting a relatively small internal SSD takes a long time. If you make the drive much bigger, put it on a slow external interface, and make it mechanical, it becomes many times slower.

If you want to keep your backups, you just have to wait it out. In the future, whenever you get a new drive, reformat it as encrypted right away. That only takes a few seconds and then you're done. Since the drive is new, there is no existing data to worry about.

Thanks for the confirmation...thought that might be the problem. I'll be getting another drive soon and will be sure to back it up first.

Gary

最後更新：2017-12-14 08:29:39

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