filevault and ultimate

[fork-media]

I'm setting up a 2018 mac mini 6 core.

I would like to have FV running - to secure my private stuff incase of machine theft

I note that ultimate is not recommending using filevault ( they also say a lot of things that arent 100% true ... )

is that for the system drive?

I'm not really a mac super user any more - but I could prob make 2 partitions using APFS ?

any tips?

[Darryl Ramm]

What file system are you running? You talking about internal boot drives or external drives or what?

Not sure what recommendations you are talking about. Link? Reference? It makes no sense to say "ultimate is not recommending" something. Ultimate is a piece of software, it's never had a sentient thought AFAIK, and it does not seem to make sense for Avid to recommend something like this for Pro Tools Ultimate and not Pro tools standard since both are really the same software.

And yes Avid's recommendations for storage related stuff can be sadly out of date/irrelevant/confused. I've just given up asking them to update stuff.

And in this case under the covers you *are* running Filevault in any modern Mac with T2 security it's doing all the same stuff on the T2 protected boot drive it's just not using a user visible key.

If you are talking about the internal boot drive on your T2 protected Mac Mini then adding a user password really does not add much additional protection. As long as you have the account login secure, disable guest accounts etc. then nobody can easily get to that stuff, and no typical mortal can bypass stuff to read the drive and certainly cannot take it out and read elsewhere, and you have a risk of forgotten passwords and tears, so maybe not worth worrying about. Given if you are worrying about file security on the T2 protected boot drive then an issue you should be worrying about is how are your backups secured?

You can't think "I'm not a Mac person and just going to throw this switch to turn on security". If you want to administer a Mac and are worried about security you *have* to dig in and read about and understand some of this stuff.

And no I would not go creating more APFS volumes unless you have other reasons to do that. That's likely creating more admin mess for yourself.

[fork-media]

internal drive. I will have invoices, tax info bank details - DOB all that stuff on there.

my backups are on encrypted drives..

this is 2018 running monteray

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by fork-media

internal drive. I will have invoices, tax info bank details - DOB all that stuff on there.

So? The boot drive on this Mac mini is already running filevault internally and encrypted by T2, you cannot disable that, adding a filevault password does not get you much more benefit, you can read the details elsewhere--lots was written about when the T2 based systems came out. Either way system login/account access, backups, and personal good practices (you and any other users on the computer) around things like using a password manager, avoiding phishing attacks, watching what might leak out in email/cloud storage accounts etc. are probably more important things to really worry about. I'd personally do not bother using a filevault password on these T2 protected boot drives, but look at the implications for yourself.

And I would uninstall Avid cloud storage/collaboration and Link software. That bloatware worries me with it's complex dependencies/large attack surface and some sloppiness with how it has been developed/rolled out.

[caseystone]

In my experience FileVault 2 does not cause any problems on boot or audio drives. Lock 'em up!