<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid</title> <meta name="description" content="VeraCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In case an attacker forces you to reveal the password, VeraCrypt provides plausible deniability. In contrast to file encryption, data encryption performed by VeraCrypt is real-time (on-the-fly), automatic, transparent, needs very little memory, and does not involve temporary unencrypted files."/> <meta name="keywords" content="encryption, security"/> <link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div> <a href="Documentation.html"><img src="VeraCrypt128x128.png" alt="VeraCrypt"/></a> </div> <div id="menu"> <ul> <li><a href="Home.html">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/code/">Source Code</a></li> <li><a href="Downloads.html">Downloads</a></li> <li><a class="active" href="Documentation.html">Documentation</a></li> <li><a href="Donation.html">Donate</a></li> <li><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/" target="_blank">Forums</a></li> </ul> </div> <div> <p> <a href="Documentation.html">Documentation</a> <img src="arrow_right.gif" alt=">>" style="margin-top: 5px"> <a href="VeraCrypt%20Volume.html">VeraCrypt Volume</a> </p></div> <div class="wikidoc"> <h1>VeraCrypt Volume</h1> <p>There are two types of VeraCrypt volumes:</p> <ul> <li>File-hosted (container) </li><li>Partition/device-hosted (non-system) </li></ul> <p>Note: In addition to creating the above types of virtual volumes, VeraCrypt can encrypt a physical partition/drive where Windows is installed (for more information, see the chapter <a href="System%20Encryption.html"><em>System Encryption</em></a>).<br> <br> A VeraCrypt file-hosted volume is a normal file, which can reside on any type of storage device. It contains (hosts) a completely independent encrypted virtual disk device.<br> <br> A VeraCrypt partition is a hard disk partition encrypted using VeraCrypt. You can also encrypt entire hard disks, USB hard disks, USB memory sticks, and other types of storage devices.</p> <p><a href="Creating%20New%20Volumes.html" style="text-align:left; color:#0080c0; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold.html">Next Section >></a></p> </div> </body></html>