Filesystem-level encryption is a form of disk encryption where individual files or directories are encrypted by the file system, in contrast to full disk encryption where the entire partition or disk, where the file system resides, is encrypted.
The advantages of filesystem-level encryption include more flexible file-based key management with public-key encryption and the fact that cryptographic keys are only loaded when a file using them is opened. Unlike full disk encryption, filesystem-level encryption does not typically encrypt filesystem metadata, such as the directory structure, file names, modification timestamps or sizes.
Notable filesystems that support this kind of encryption include the Encrypting File System layer of NTFS.
See also
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