You can also encrypt your startup disk using filevault, so that only users who can log in to your mac can read the data on that disk. for even more protection, you can set a firmware password. a firmware password prevents users who don't have the password from starting up from any disk other than the designated startup disk.. Os x: filevault does a great job of protecting your mac. every time you boot up, it asks for your password. if you're troubleshooting or providing remote support, though, entering it every time is. The filevault 2 encryption is controlled by the resident os and unlockable by a set of username/password accounts. filevault 2 can also be used to encrypt external drives. in that case there is no recovery hd, and there is a single encrypted partition, which can be unlocked not by username/password pairs, but by plain disk passwords..
Using filevault full disk encryption is one of the better ways to protect your mac and personal documents from prying eyes and password resets, but if you’re troubleshooting a mac with filevault. There are no other pitfalls. and unlike filevault a firmware password can be easily turned off any time you need to. will firmware updates continue to come in normally with software update? yes. enabling firmware password has no effect on any updates that you get.. I have turned on filevault and firmware password. how does that affect the recovery partition? i cannot use option at boot to choose it which i have read is expected behaviour..
