Topic: how many hours/days does it take to create a fixed sized encrypted disc

Long. We’re thinking of ways to de-emphasize the “fixed size” feature in the New Vault dialog since it’s not really the best way to go in most of the cases—especially not for big disks. Here’s what the FAQ says about the subject:

Should I choose a stretchable or a fixed-size whole disk vault?
In almost all cases, you should choose the default stretchable type. It’s fast to create and easy to backup, as the encrypted disk image only takes as much space as the content you are encrypting. There are a couple of specific instances where you might want to use the fixed-size option. It creates an image that fills the whole disk with encrypted data (initially, encrypted zeroes). This takes a while (a long while if you have a large disk) but has some potential benefits as well. First of all, a fixed size vault does not reveal the amount of data you have stored on it to those without a password. Second, write speeds to the vault can be more consistent as the system does not need to stretch the vault as you write more data onto it. Finally, since the underlying non-encrypted volume has almost no free space, you can be more confident that someone will not accidentally store files on it.