Advantages
EncFS offers several advantages over other disk encryption software simply because each file is stored individually as an encrypted file somewhere else in the host's directory tree.
- EncFS "volumes" do not occupy a fixed size — they grow and shrink as more files are added to or removed from the mountpoint.
- It is possible for some directories on the mountpoint to exist on different physical devices, if a filesystem is mounted over one of the subdirectories in the source directory.
- Backup utilities can back up only the files that have changed in the source directory.
- Corruption of data is more isolated. Data corruption of filedata is local to a single file and data corruption of the filesystem can be corrected with a reliable filesystem repair utility like fsck. In some whole-disk encryption systems, one or both of these attributes are not present.
- Since file modifications shine through to the underlying file system, various optimizations by the operating system are still possible unlike with full disk encryption. For example, passing information about released space (TRIM) can improve performance of SSD drives.
Read more about this topic: Enc FS
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“... there are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance—no fetters so binding as those that bind the soul, and exclude it from the vast field of useful and scientific knowledge. O, had I received the advantages of early education, my ideas would, ere now, have expanded far and wide; but, alas! I possess nothing but moral capability—no teachings but the teachings of the Holy Spirit.”
—Maria Stewart (1803–1879)
“[T]here is no Part of the World where Servants have those Privileges and Advantages as in England: They have no where else such plentiful Diet, large Wages, or indulgent Liberty: There is no place wherein they labour less, and yet where they are so little respectful, more wasteful, more negligent, or where they so frequently change their Masters.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“A woman might claim to retain some of the child’s faculties, although very limited and defused, simply because she has not been encouraged to learn methods of thought and develop a disciplined mind. As long as education remains largely induction ignorance will retain these advantages over learning and it is time that women impudently put them to work.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)