Offsite Backup Plan versus Sparsebundle Files

[PGB1]

Hello!

I use iDrive, but all of a sudden, restored encrypted sparsebundle folders can't be opened if restored to the computer & only can be restored as individual bands if restored to the cellular phone. Technical support has been of no help.

I used to use Crash Plan, but they stopped allowing sparse bundles. (And were polite enough to notify in advance)

A thought was to let iCloud handle the offsite, but two glitches present themselves: A) It's not designed to have version retention, as does Time Machine locally. B) With my Android phone, I can only get to photos, e-mails and notes stored on iCloud- but not to documents.

Have any of you had luck with an offsite backup application and encrypted sparsebundle folders?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. It's appreciated much.
Paul

 

[pm-r]

Have any of you had luck with an offsite backup application and encrypted sparsebundle folders?

Just curious, but do you work for any spy type organization that you are required to use encrypted sparsebundle folders???


- Patrick
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[PGB1]

No, Patrick, I'm not a black helicopter, dark sunglasses guy.
It's just another password for a bad guy to bust through to get to my financial, medical and other keep-it-on-lockdown information. (A prime example is Social Security numbers & log in stuff.)
Paul

 

[pm-r]

It's just another password for a bad guy to bust through to get to my financial, medical and other keep-it-on-lockdown information.

And an excellent idea to keep such personal information well protected, If one keeps it on one's computer.


- Patrick
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[PGB1]

I suppose, more importantly is that when I work the computer often is running a device or instrument & left unattended- sometimes over the night. With the sparse bundle, my "Real Life" stuff is locked away.

So far, Backblaze has said they can handle sparsebundle folders. They are more expensive than most others, but at least they took the time to answer my inquiry when others did not bother.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I suppose, more importantly is that when I work the computer often is running a device or instrument & left unattended- sometimes over the night. With the sparse bundle, my "Real Life" stuff is locked away.

So far, Backblaze has said they can handle sparsebundle folders. They are more expensive than most others, but at least they took the time to answer my inquiry when others did not bother.

You may be best served by changing your practices. Consider running the unattended tasks under a Standard (non-admin) user that perhaps auto-logs in. Segregate your personal "Real Life" stuff into a separate admin account that is set to require a password after a very short period of inactivity. This would effectively protect your stuff behind another password in the same manner you do now. Ideally, you'd be doing this on a Mac with APFS as the file system.

 

[PGB1]

Thank You Lifeisabeach for your suggestion. It certainly will be safe & keep people out.
But, I'd like not to switch users back and forth. When items are connected to the computer, I often have that window open and open another to do other tasks while glancing at the connected item's window.

My next not-so-genius idea was a password protected DMG instead of sparsebundle.
I tried creating a password protected, read-write DMG of a random folder, using Disk Utility. What I found out is that I could not add files to the dmg. (Fixed size?) I guess I was wrong when I thought I could use it like a normal folder.

Next, I tried to manually add the sparsebundle to iCloud as an offsite location to store it & keep it sync'd.
Dragging & dropping to the Finder iCloud icon was a mistake. It took the folder away from where it used to live and put it in iCloud only- but not on line. It was only in the Finder sidebar iCloud.

Copy-Paste to the iCloud Finder sidebar item left it there for a day. It had a picture of a cloud next to it, but never uploaded to the cloud.

Logging into iCloud on the computer and pasting the folder there didn't work. It did not allow the folder to be selected (nor any folder). Dragging it there didn't work either.

System Preferences - iCloud does not have a choice to allow documents. It only has, under iCloud Drive, a few random applications, plus Mail and Reminders. The choice for Documents is not on the list.

Next- I bit the bullet and tried Google One. Folders are not allowed to be uploaded.

Who would have thought getting an encrypted sparsebundle stored offsite would be such a problem?

Sincerely,
Frustrated

PS: I spoke on the phone with someone up the tech chain at iDrive:
He said they stopped allowing folders over 2 GB to be accessed via a browser. (I can't access folders under 2gb either- only files) Wish they'd have told the customers.
For the mobile app, he said they no longer allow folders to be downloaded- only individual files. (Again, no notice to the customer)
For the desktop application, the answer was "It's sometimes a problem to download a folder in tact." Sometimes seems to be always.

So much for iDrive & sparsebundles.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

My next not-so-genius idea was a password protected DMG instead of sparsebundle.
I tried creating a password protected, read-write DMG of a random folder, using Disk Utility. What I found out is that I could not add files to the dmg. (Fixed size?) I guess I was wrong when I thought I could use it like a normal folder.

Yes, DMGs are of a fixed size. So your option here would be to create a read/write DMG of a sufficiently large size in advance to accommodate your stuff while still having plenty of extra space to add more items. The obvious consequence is that you'd have a lot of "wasted" space. You can make a DMG that uses compression like bzip, so that should help make the most of the space used in the DMG. It's easiest to use a 3rd party tool like DropDMG to make these for you.

 

[PGB1]

Thanks All for helping & supplying ideas and suggestions. I very much appreciate your sharing of knowledge. Sparsebundle folders are causing problems that I think FileVault will solve.

I checked into all offsite storage plans and each one reported various problems & limitations with sparsebundles and DMG folders. Without sparsebundles or DMG, any offsite should work.


Maybe my best (and simplest on the brain) plan is to commit to buying a new computer for home & doing the following:

A) On the new computer, take the private items out of the sparsebundle folders. Protect the drive with FileVault. Then any offsite backup plan should work well enough for what I need to accomplish.

B) Use my current (2007 Santa Rosa) MacBook Pro for work. It does the jobs I need for work. All the "keep the bad guys out" stuff would be deleted from the hard drive, perhaps by a secure erase & start-over. Work has been very, very sparse lately, so it won't get much use.

The one thing I can't figure out with FileVault is if the Time Machine drive's files are also protected.

For home, I'll probably buy either a Mac Mini M1 or an iMac M1. The are both "I can afford it sooner" units than Macbook Pro. The larger screen will be much appreciated. (Typed as I struggle to read at this 15.4" screen.)

Does FIleVault sound like a good plan for the home computer?

 

[rbpeirce]

I'm late to this conversation but for many years I've used a password protected sparsebundle for my financial info. I have no idea how secure it is but it accomplishes its purpose for my use.

 

[pm-r]

I have no idea how secure it is but it accomplishes its purpose for my use.

To test it, just try opening it without using its password.

That should indicate to you how secure it is.


- Patrick
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[rbpeirce]

You can't open it without a password. Went I meant was there might be some other way to open it of which I am unaware.

 

[pm-r]

You can't open it without a password. Went I meant was there might be some other way to open it of which I am unaware.

There doesn't seem to be from what I can find:

Editing a Sparsebundle package contents t… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

and:

Google Search

It seems it is pretty safe, just don't forget or lose it's password!!!


- Patrick
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[Rod]

I am really not a fan of FileVault. If you search this forum for FileVault you will, I'm sure, find a lot of references to problems involving drive encryption. True, it usually involves another issue but the bottom line is often that a seemingly unrelated problem cannot be solved because of FileVault.
No offense but I think you are taking personal security a little too far. Data loss is still a much greater problem than data theft.
Personally I think a strong admin password, preferences set to require password on wake from sleep, a hot corner to put your device to sleep whenever you leave it unattended, a good (local) password manager an encrypted .dmg file to store archived valuable documents such as tax file data, marriage cert, birth cert etc. is more than enough to provide adequate security. The use of a good "no logging" VPN and a browser that prevents tracking can further compliment your security along with a disposable alias email address are all good additions.
As far as online backups go I cannot see why iCloud and/or Cloud Drive (two different things) would not suffice as they work natively with the Apple platform, use end to end encryption and will accept encrypted files.

 

[PGB1]

Thanks for your thoughts & ideas Rod.

I never have been able to figure out if FileVault protects against someone who breaks through the router firewall when the computer is in use. It seems they could still get to documents.

Your suggestion of a strong log in password, plus password after sleep, sounds simplest. DMG for permanent, non-changing things of which you gave examples sounds simple & peaceful.

I'll still want some files, such as the medical, income tax & social security stuff, in sparsebundles. They change size, so a DMG probably isn't the best for those.

A VPN is an appreciated suggestion that I'll follow through on. One email service I use, sbcglobal, has disposable addresses that I use when shopping & stuff. It sure cuts down on junk. Hide My Email, from iCloud, sounds interesting, too.

From what I can find out, iCloud is a very secure place to store documents. I sure don't know why iCloud does not have an option for files and folders on my computer & won't let me drag them in. Oddly, there are documents there. How I did that remains a mystery.

 

[MacInWin]

I am really not a fan of FileVault. If you search this forum for FileVault you will, I'm sure, find a lot of references to problems involving drive encryption. True, it usually involves another issue but the bottom line is often that a seemingly unrelated problem cannot be solved because of FileVault.

Rod, in the new M1 system FV works differently. The data storage is ALWAYS encrypted, even with FV off. But what FV adds is a second passcode to decrypt the data. The impact to performance is minimal since the data has to be decrypted anyway, so the second security layer does not make it worse. Have a read of this:

Explainer: FileVault

On T2 and M1 Macs, FileVault provides robust protection of the Data volume on internal storage without any performance penalty.

eclecticlight.co

I'm seriously considering enabling FV on my M1 MBP. Haven't pulled the trigger on that yet, but I've stopped saying FV is not good. Plus, the erasing of the drive with FV is as simple as one click n the "erase all content and settings" option, which deletes the FV key and renders the drive unreadable.

I never have been able to figure out if FileVault protects against someone who breaks through the router firewall when the computer is in use. It seems they could still get to documents.

That is not what FV is for. FV is to protect your data in case the machine or drive is stolen and the thief tries to get to your data. It is encrypted, so fails. But if you have logged in, and the miscreant can get through the protections to your system with YOUR authority, they can read the data. But that is very highly unlikely to occur. Relative to a mac being stolen, the risk of a firewall breach to your system is miniscule.

 

[Rod]

Thank you again Jake for bringing me up to date with developments. I'm going to have to revise my opinion of FileVault on SoC Macs obviously.

 

[pm-r]

No offense but I think you are taking personal security a little too far. Data loss is still a much greater problem than data theft.

I think most users would have to agree with this reality fact, but regardless, many seem to like to go overboard with overkill with their protection, and often end up in more trouble when doing so.

Many posts to this forum confirm that situation...


- Patrick
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[PGB1]

Thank You Jake for explaining that FileVault is for protecting data if the machine is stolen. Thanks to your simple explanation, I now understand that the files are accessible when the computer is in use by me, with my password. So, I suppose the best defense is the router's firewall.

Since my computer doesn;t have the Files option in System Preferences - iCloud, I was having trouble getting folders to iCloud Drive & getting files to open once there. Today, I was able to copy-paste items to either the iCloud on-line web page or to the Finder sidebar. They opened. But....

Those folders & contents, after pasting into iCloud are no longer encrypted. All one needs is to get into my computer or the on line iCloud account & private isn't private. So much for my "genius" plan of having a second offsite storage place for my personal files. Such is life.

 

[MacInWin]

True, the encryption for FV is only for he internal volumes, but you could always encrypt the files before you send them to the cloud, iCloud or not. Go to the Mac App Store and search for "encrypt" and browse the options for a solution you might like.