Question (not a statement). Doesn't encrypting the drive also prevent you from recovering some of the information on the disk by way of drive recovery utilities?
So for example you might want to encrypt something super sensitive (which I do) but decide to not encrypt something less sensitive (say photos or perhaps a wiki with notes or letters to your grandma or wife or sig other).
Point being that if the drive isn't encrypted you might be able to get at some of that data. (If you need to). If you've encrypted the drive then can you still do that?
Yes, the data will probably be completely irrecoverable from an encrypted drive. However, instead of hoping that you will be able to recover data from a broken drive, back it up.
I strongly recommend Tarsnap[1] for that. All your data is encrypted before it leaves your machine, it is run by our very own 'cperciva, and the key used for encryption (which you need to store securely somewhere, like your parents' house or a bank) can even be printed so hard to destroy accidentally.
The key itself can be encrypted, too. You can use the same password you use to encrypt the drive and now you safely and securely store all your data in such a way that only you can ever access it by remembering a single, longer phrase.
(Although to be fair, another backup would probably be a good idea if the data is really important. Maybe another encrypted hard drive kept at work.)
I think that looks good but I have to tell you that the idea of committing data to what appears to be one person who could get "hit by a bus" worries me.
I'd like to see on sites like that some kind of continuity plan.
Unless you are suggestion that this is just another "redundant array of backups that you have to assume can fail".
But even in that case it would be a good idea if cperciva had something posted on the site which showed there was someone else who had access and kept on top of the system.
