How to encrypt USB drive attached to LinkStation Pro Duo

[hungtat]

   I have a LaCie USB disk attached to the LinkStation Pro Duo. Can anyone tell me how I can encrypt the USB disk either through LinkStation or with some standalone software?

[hungtat]

   By the way, the USB disk is formatted as XFS.

[admsupport]

   

I don't see an easy way to encrypt XFS file system at the moment.

TrueCrypt surpports LINUX, and there is a way, but that is not simple.

Look at the end of the blog for XFS parameters.

http://blog.gnu-designs.com/truecrypt-on-linux-with-xfs-and-ext2ext3-volumes

IF encryption is a matter, I would revert to NTFS.

[BuffaloBrian]

   

The LinkStation will not be able to intrepret any encryption on the HDD so unless you want to encrypt the data after it's been removed from the LinkStation and never access it from the LinkStation, then what you're asking is impossible.

 

Also, most encryption softwares for HDDs require you to create a new partition and format it erasing the existing data on it (i.e. even my scenario in the above paragraph won't work in this case).

[7tronics]

The included license for NovaBACKUP is interesting, as NovaBACKUP supports encrypting all backup data from each of the up to 5 included clients. I setup and tested, on a dual core 2.2GHz laptop, full backup took about 30% longer when encrypted than not (to separate filesystems on Buffalo Linkstation Duo) setup as mirrored 1TB disk pair.

 

There are many other versions of backup software that allow encryption and incremental/differential backups. I have to admit, NovaBACKUP was easy enough to setup and get running that I used it for the two PCs at my in-laws as well as the 3 Windows PCs that my family owns. I'm in the midst of setting up BackupPC which supports our Linux boxes as well and runs on them.

 

I fully expect that enabling encryption on the filesystem as outlined here will decrease throughput a great deal: http://jeltsch.org/node/457 Hardware encryption sounds nice, but except for Enterprise class systems, I have my concerns over ability to recover if there is any disk failure, so this is going to be setup on a mirrored drive pair.

 

However the Linkstation Duo may make a better target as the "rsync engine" under the covers for BackupPC. Here is a set of tips for using rsync with a Linkstation Duo: http://www.mail-archive.com/plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/msg22904.html

 

Now I am not sure how to put these together so that the Linkstation Duo volume is setup encrypted as a target for BackupPC, hence for now I am content with the commercial backup software encrypting all data that will reside on the Linkstation Duo.

 

Best, Mark