# Index external drive containing sensitive data

**URL:** <https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391>\
**Category:** DEVONthink\
**Tags:** devonthink3\
**Created:** [May 10, 2021, 8:05am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391 "2021-05-10T08:05:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Justine](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@Justine](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/Justine)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 8:05am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/1 "2021-05-10T08:05:30Z")

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I store a large amount of sensitive patient data on an offline external disk that is only attached as required. I do this to mitigate risk of unauthorised access due to attack vectors that gives the attacker access to all files and folders my user account has access to.

I’d like to be able to index all the metadata relating to these files so I can perform searches and if required to read the file then I attach the external drive. I don’t want any of the content of the files indexed on my Mac’s internal drive, just the file metadata. Therefor if an attacker gained access to my Mac and the DT database they could only get access to all the file metadata but not any of the content.

I attempted to index files on an external disk but DT indexed the full contents and also thumbnails of the pdf’s etc. Can DT do what I need?

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**Author:** ![cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/cgrunenberg/32/7172_2.png) [@cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/cgrunenberg)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 8:14am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/2 "2021-05-10T08:14:19Z")

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> [@Justine](#):
>
> I attempted to index files on an external disk but DT indexed the full contents and also thumbnails of the pdf’s etc. Can DT do what I need?

Thumbnails can be controlled in Preferences \> Media \> Thumbnails. As DEVONthink indexes always the contents and metadata, one possibility might be to use an encrypted database instead. Or to store the database on the external drive too.

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**Author:** ![consiglieri](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@consiglieri](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/consiglieri)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 3:24pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/3 "2021-09-16T15:24:49Z")

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A bit late in the discussion. Are you saying that if I index an external drive that contains a 100gb then the indexed database will also be close to 100gb in size??

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**Author:** ![cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/cgrunenberg/32/7172_2.png) [@cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/cgrunenberg)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/4 "2021-09-16T15:34:55Z")

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A lot less disk space should be required usually but that depends on the kind of the files and their contents too.

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**Author:** ![BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/bluefrog/32/135_2.png) [@BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/BLUEFROG)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 3:38pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/5 "2021-09-16T15:38:37Z")

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Size in gigabytes isn’t the critical number. If you check out **File \> Database Properties \> …** for a given database, the number of **words / unique words** are more critical. So text content in a database is far more important.

- If you have a database of images, it will have very few words but be large in gigabytes.
- If you have a database of emails, it will have **many** words, but may be smaller in gigabytes.

The second one may perform more poorly deu to the number of words.

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**Author:** ![consiglieri](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@consiglieri](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/consiglieri)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/6 "2021-09-16T17:48:18Z")

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Thanks, guess I ended up with two threads but now I finally “get it”.

I’m setting up my new solo law practice and am inte midst of structuring the way I deal with documents by using amongst other things DT.

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**Author:** ![rmschne](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@rmschne](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/rmschne)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 6:02pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/7 "2021-09-16T18:02:48Z")

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also take great care to eject the external disk before disconnecting. Macs are picky about that to avoid corruption. also ensure you have a robust (and tested) backup regime of that external disk. it is inevitable that it will corrupt. when is anyone’s guess but likely to be exactly when not wanted.

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**Author:** ![BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/bluefrog/32/135_2.png) [@BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/BLUEFROG)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/8 "2021-09-16T18:59:28Z")

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Haha! I just did that last night. 🙄 😛  
Disconnected a peripheral, forgetting I had an external drive attached. Fortunately it wasn’t a drive of any consequence and filesystems are more robust than they used to be, but yeah, a proper ejection before disconnecting is still a good idea.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/bluefrog/32/135_2.png) [@BLUEFROG](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/BLUEFROG)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 7:04pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/index-external-drive-containing-sensitive-data/64391/9 "2021-09-16T19:04:28Z")

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Congratulations on putting out your shingle! ❤ 🙂  
We’re glad to be a part of your new endeavor.

There are other litigators on these fora and threads talking about the possibility of someone setting up something for all the _“lawyer talk”_ 😉

> [@Lawyer on DT, each client as a Database?](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/lawyer-on-dt-each-client-as-a-database/63486):
>
> Lawyers, I’m about 2 weeks in to DT with the intent of using as case management. I have a dropbox folder of about 50 Gs. It contains child folders, alphabetized from A-Z, with client folders inside. Thus far, i’ve been selecting current clients as I work on them, and import their folder as separate databases. Is this how you guys do it? Reading around on here, it seems some might suggest to import the 50 G parent folder as a database, and parse out from there. From what i read, this might d…

> [@Lawyers on DT, Thread 2](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/lawyers-on-dt-thread-2/64646):
>
> starting a new thread to concentrate on the notion of a lawyer technology forum. to that end I’ve bought two domains for the cause and will donate them: [tech-lawyers.com](http://tech-lawyers.com)[lawyer-technology.com](http://lawyer-technology.com) my suggestion is a decent forum package set-up, and we’ll figure out how to admit members, etc. since DT is where this idea was born, it should feature prominently in what ever is done. NOTE: “I”, [me personally] am NOT the guy to get such a site up and running. Volunteers, jump aboard and I can get/…

Also, this may be of use to you…

[https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/search?q=lawyers%20%20DT](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/search?q=lawyers%20%20DT)