Asustor NAS and cryptsetup 1.6.1

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<font face="Arial">Hello,<br>
<br>
I am new to cryptsetup and trying to figure out some things.<br>
The background: I purchased an Asustore AS-304T NAS device that
uses cryptsetup to set up encrypted shared folders.<br>
I am trying to make sure that I will be able to access all my data
on the disks outside of the NAS device using a regular PC with
linux installed, in case the NAS device itself fails and I need to
get to my data.<br>
I will probably post some questions about this later.<br>
<br>
For now, I have a question about the version of cryptsetup used by
the device.<br>
I have set up a test system with a RAID1 volume and an encrypted
folder on it using the regular Asustor maintenance interface.<br>
Logging in to the device as root, "cryptsetup --version" shows "cryptsetup
1.6.1" as installed version.<br>
<br>
Thus my first question: I saw that the current version seems to be
1.6.6<br>
What is the status of 1.6.1? Is it a stable production release
that can be used without problems? Or are there critical issues
that would require using a newer version than 1.6.1 ? I went
through the release notes of the versions above 1.6.1, but it is
not clear how critical the fixes/changes since version 1.6.1 are<br>
Also, what other sub-components or libraries besides cryptsetup
should I check?<br>
<br>
Furthermore, using "cryptsetup status EncTest.1" to show some
basics about the created test container shows this:<br>
/dev/mapper/EncTest.1 is active and is in use.<br>
  type:    PLAIN<br>
  cipher:  aes-cbc-plain<br>
  keysize: 256 bits<br>
  device:  /dev/loop0<br>
  loop:    /volume1/.@loopfiles/EncTest<br>
  offset:  0 sectors<br>
  size:    11619787984 sectors<br>
  mode:    read/write<br>
<br>
Is this a plausible setup that makes sense, or is there something
wrong with this default?<br>
I have found out a few things that are making me a bit nervous:<br>
1. The initially created empty container is "huge":  </font><font
face="Arial"><font face="Arial">it uses up 4.5GB</font> without me
storing any data inside!<br>
2. The management interface does not seem to offer any way to
create or download backups of the encryption headers for backup
purposes as suggested in
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#6._Backup_and_Data_Recovery">https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#6._Backup_and_Data_Recovery</a>.<br>
3. There is an "auto-mount"option for encrypted folders that allow
shutting down and rebooting the device without having to re-enter
the encryption pass-phrase in order to access the encrypted folder
- it is just there and mounted automatically. Not sure if this is
still "secure"" or if this means that my pass-phrase is stored
somewhere on the device in clear unencrypted form (I suspect the
latter).<br>
<br>
So I am wondering if there are things in their setup that are
fundamentally flawed.<br>
<br>
Thank you in advance!<br>
<br>
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