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Re: Encrypting an External HDD



On 04/15/2015 12:33 PM, David Christensen wrote:
On 04/15/2015 08:01 AM, ken wrote:
What options or features does one get by putting the LUKS container in a
partition rather than putting it on a raw drive?

I am not aware of any technical advantages or disadvantages of LUKS on a
raw drive vs. LUKS on a partition.  For me, it's more a matter of
personal habit/ psychology in the face of several computers, many
drives, and changing conditions over the years.


Prior to running encrypted drives, I used to wipe (zero) drives when I
took them out of service.  Since migrating to LUKS partitions, sometimes
I wipe, sometimes I shred, and sometimes I just put the drive aside.  So
now when I grab a spare drive off the shelf, I look for a partition table:

1.  If the first megabyte has been zeroed:

 ....  (elision for brevity) ....

David,

Thanks for the outstanding answer.

After thinking about it, and remembering that partitioning also detects and marks bad blocks, I was then wondering if this was done also by the writing of LUKS container alone. Anyone know?


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