Bitlocker vs FileVault

[Deadmac]

What's on my Mac iBrothers and iSisters,

I've just got a new iMac, never used iMac's before, never even owned a Mac, much to my regret as they are awesome. However, I used to use BitLocker on Windows, and now I've moved to OSX, I've found out BitLocker doesn't work with Mac, and wanted some sort of encryption. I've been reading up on FileVault, and it seems a good thing to enable, however, what's the difference between Bitlocker & FileVault, does Filevault require a password to login to your encrypted HDD? or does it just recognise the iMac?

Also; is there any BitLocker READER out there for Mac. Not worried about encrypting things in BitLocker, just my 1TB External HDD is encrypted and before I sold my old Windows PC, I completely forgot to decrypt it.

If anyone knows anything, give me a shout.

Thanks!

-DeadMac

 

[RavingMac]

I assume since you say new iMac that you are running Lion OS X 10.7, if so then File Vault2 is the encryption program that is standard and so far I have seen no problems with it (the same could not be said of File Vault).

In either case I DO NOT reccomend encrypting your HD and user account. That is a ticket to potential catastrophic and unrecoverable data loss. To me the best method is to use encrypted Disk Images for files you want to protect on your internal HD and encrypted external drives for storage.

As far as a program to read your Bitlocked drive, you might try Knox from Agilebits Software. It is a good package for creating and managing encrypted folders and Disk Images, possible it might be able to read your old drive. Worth a try.

 

[Deadmac]

Hi Razormac,

Thanks for the advice, I'll leave the primary disk well alone then aha!

Oh Knox you say? hmm, I'll give that a go, thanks!

-Deadmac