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Are other people experiencing too many corruption problems on encrypted disks? I have a veracrypt drive, and I regularly have to run a scan and fix on it becau

Are other people experiencing too many corruption problems on encrypted disks? I have a veracrypt drive, and I regularly have to run a scan and fix on it because it's very sensitive to power cut, brutal restart, etc. Also, it's slow. I put my firefox conf folder in it, but it slows the browser down. Once I went full encrypted disk, but one day corruption happened, and it stopped booting. So I went back.

withinboredom 5y ago
You probably have some fun disk caching turned on in the OS or your disk has a built in cache that it’s not properly flushing. I’ve seen this before with cheap SSDs.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Maybe, I don't know enough about this, but I've been using this veracrypt disk on 6 machines, now, and I have the problem with each of them. Also, I don't have any problem with non encrypted data.
  - blablablub 5y ago
    Looks like a veracrypt problem then.
  - orthecreedence 5y ago
    Maybe a dumb question, but are you on windows? Check that Defender isn't scanning every single time data is written to your veracrypt drive. When I was on windows, the most painful slowdowns were almost invariably caused by Windows Defender.
snassar 5y ago
The better solution to these kind of problems is having a backup concept with an implementation and regular testing of backups. The encryption exposed a problem with your disks or system in general. Depending on what the problem was, the problem is still there but you are not seeing it. Now you have a possible problem and unencrypted files.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  I have a backup, but this is not a solution. Only a crutch. I had those problems on several machines, including brand new ones.
lathiat 5y ago
I’ve not used verycrypt, only normal Linux LUKS device mapper encryption, ZFS encryption and windows bitlocker full disk encryption with a paraphrase entered on boot (no tpm). But I haven’t had this problem with any of those. I’d suggest either your SSD just loses data on power off which is a problem with some SSDs or it’s some veracrypt specific issue that I wouldn’t be familiar with. Id encourage you to try out one of the above options.
amarshall 5y ago
Don’t generalize your problems with a specific software (Veracrypt) to all drive encryption software. Plenty of drive encryption solutions are fast, reliable, and resilient. (You could also be having a hardware problem exacerbated by adding an abstraction layer.) I’ve used LUKS, GELI, ZFS encryption, FileVault, and BitLocker across numerous drives over the past decade (albeit in different individual proportions and timelines) with no corruption problems.
theandrewbailey 5y ago
No. I run a server in my basement, and for the past 5+ years, every one of its drives have been LUKS encrypted, including external backup drives. I've had no issues with encryption (corruption, speed, or otherwise), only disk hardware failing outright.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Servers and consumer laptop are very different beast though, so not sure the comparison hold. You don't shut them off often, they don't go to sleep, rarely undergo shock, plane travel or forced shut down...
  - privacyxpert 5y ago
    Friend, LUKS is reliable. LUKS doesn't just eat data in those edgecases you talk about, there would be tons of reports if that were the case. LUKS is used all over the place for non-server uses too. I can count at least 3 devices that are all LUKS-encrypted that are used as consumer devices daily. I trip over the power cord, I let the battery die, I drop it, I fly regularly, etc, etc. Never once had a single issue. In fact, the single time that I've had FS issues under Linux was running under Hyper-V but that's because of the slowly-being-uncovered serious issues w/ Hyper-V.
vbezhenar 5y ago
I started using full disk encryption (except /boot) this year, so far no problems at all. I'm using ordinary luks on Fedora.
deckard1 5y ago
Never had a problem with LUKS over a decade of usage. In fact, I'm actually having the opposite issue: I have a drive that is failing and LUKS is still able to decrypt it by some miracle. > Also, it's slow. Modern CPUs have AES instructions built-in. I would check to make sure you're utilizing them. You should not see any slowdown when using encryption.

withinboredom 5y ago

You probably have some fun disk caching turned on in the OS or your disk has a built in cache that it’s not properly flushing. I’ve seen this before with cheap SSDs.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Maybe, I don't know enough about this, but I've been using this veracrypt disk on 6 machines, now, and I have the problem with each of them. Also, I don't have any problem with non encrypted data.
- blablablub 5y ago
  Looks like a veracrypt problem then.
- orthecreedence 5y ago
  Maybe a dumb question, but are you on windows? Check that Defender isn't scanning every single time data is written to your veracrypt drive. When I was on windows, the most painful slowdowns were almost invariably caused by Windows Defender.

snassar 5y ago

The better solution to these kind of problems is having a backup concept with an implementation and regular testing of backups. The encryption exposed a problem with your disks or system in general. Depending on what the problem was, the problem is still there but you are not seeing it. Now you have a possible problem and unencrypted files.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
I have a backup, but this is not a solution. Only a crutch. I had those problems on several machines, including brand new ones.

lathiat 5y ago

I’ve not used verycrypt, only normal Linux LUKS device mapper encryption, ZFS encryption and windows bitlocker full disk encryption with a paraphrase entered on boot (no tpm). But I haven’t had this problem with any of those. I’d suggest either your SSD just loses data on power off which is a problem with some SSDs or it’s some veracrypt specific issue that I wouldn’t be familiar with. Id encourage you to try out one of the above options.

amarshall 5y ago

Don’t generalize your problems with a specific software (Veracrypt) to all drive encryption software. Plenty of drive encryption solutions are fast, reliable, and resilient. (You could also be having a hardware problem exacerbated by adding an abstraction layer.) I’ve used LUKS, GELI, ZFS encryption, FileVault, and BitLocker across numerous drives over the past decade (albeit in different individual proportions and timelines) with no corruption problems.

theandrewbailey 5y ago

No. I run a server in my basement, and for the past 5+ years, every one of its drives have been LUKS encrypted, including external backup drives. I've had no issues with encryption (corruption, speed, or otherwise), only disk hardware failing outright.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Servers and consumer laptop are very different beast though, so not sure the comparison hold. You don't shut them off often, they don't go to sleep, rarely undergo shock, plane travel or forced shut down...
- privacyxpert 5y ago
  Friend, LUKS is reliable. LUKS doesn't just eat data in those edgecases you talk about, there would be tons of reports if that were the case. LUKS is used all over the place for non-server uses too. I can count at least 3 devices that are all LUKS-encrypted that are used as consumer devices daily. I trip over the power cord, I let the battery die, I drop it, I fly regularly, etc, etc. Never once had a single issue. In fact, the single time that I've had FS issues under Linux was running under Hyper-V but that's because of the slowly-being-uncovered serious issues w/ Hyper-V.

vbezhenar 5y ago

I started using full disk encryption (except /boot) this year, so far no problems at all. I'm using ordinary luks on Fedora.

deckard1 5y ago

Never had a problem with LUKS over a decade of usage. In fact, I'm actually having the opposite issue: I have a drive that is failing and LUKS is still able to decrypt it by some miracle. > Also, it's slow. Modern CPUs have AES instructions built-in. I would check to make sure you're utilizing them. You should not see any slowdown when using encryption.