Enc FS - Advantages

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:

    “But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”
    —Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)

    “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)

    “To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel.... Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)