Can a combination USB microphone/flash drive be encrypted?

1

I have a USB flash drive that doubles as a microphone for music practice. There is no GUI interface, you just plug into a power source and it records.

For most drives on Mac OS, I can right-click > Encrypt <drive name> and set a password. As far as I can tell, the only way to remove encryption from this disk is to erase it, which requires picking a format, etc.

I tested this with a standard USB flash drive, but I'm afraid to test with my USB microphone drive since erasing it may remove the very software that allows it to record music.

Is there any way to know if this is possible? Or to safely test this without potentially damaging the drive's software?

Holt Winters

Posted 2019-01-22T01:54:38.890

Reputation: 11

Answers

1

Its unlikely - the USB microphone needs to write to the storage, and due to the limitations of the chips they use probably are fixed to certain specific file systems.

I half suspect it would survive a reformat and back for testing, but its unlikely it'll work encrypted

Journeyman Geek

Posted 2019-01-22T01:54:38.890

Reputation: 119 122

I'd suggest a backup of the current contents before making such an experiment would be in order, and given the users I deal with, would not think that could go without saying. Just saying. – Ed Grimm – 2019-01-22T03:50:33.507