"I have just bought a new 500GB external hard drive that is used to store sensitive files on it. In case the exposure of the important data when it gets lost or stolen, I would like to encrypt my external hard drive. Therefore, the sensitive files on it are well protected and can't be viewed by others and yet the drive can be moved to another computer and accessed by me."

The above question is asked by a guy on a forum. Do you have a hard drive at hand and have you ever thought about encrypting your external hard drive? Nowadays as the usage of these small-sized portable devices is getting increased day by day, the incidences of lost and stolen removable devices, like external hard drive, that ultimately lead to data loss and privacy breach often occur. To avoid data loss, improving security of your external hard drive and other USB devices in advance is necessary. An encryption tool which can encrypt external hard drives and other removable devices is an available option for you.

Encryption software allows you to add password to protect your data on USB devices. It can stop any people without correct password from accessing to your confidential on USB removable devices even your devices are lost or stolen. You can find numbers of USB Security software on Google but the point is that you have to select the best among them. Usually good encryption software features 256-bit AES encryption because 256-bit AES is the highest level protection available in data encryption at present. And it is convenient for you to access the encrypted data in any computer even the computer hasn’t installed the security program. Besides, it should be easy to use because some encryption programs are too complicated to be understood by users.

After selecting security software, you can encrypt external hard drives with the encryption software on your own. I would be using Wondershare USB Drive Encryption to encrypt external hard drives and other USB devices. In addition to the features mentioned above, it can also allow you to get more protection to hide your encrypted data by deleting the access to encrypted data. What’s more, the encryption can be finished in 4 simple steps. The following steps and find out how to encrypt external hard drives with Wondershare USB Drive.

Step 1: Download the software from here and install it in your computer following the step-by-step guidance.

Step 2: Insert your external hard drive in computer.

If you have stored files on your hard drive, please remember to backup your files on it. Otherwise you’ll lose your data because it’ll delete all the existed files on the external hard drive to create a secure area on it to store your confidential data.

Step 3:Select your target external hard drive, and set the size of secure area according to your needs, and then click Install to install the program on your external hard drive.

Step 4: Enter your user name and a password for the external hard drive.

The password should be easy to remember but not so common that others will guess the password and gain access to the encrypted external hard drive. Once you forget your password, you’ll never get it back.

After the above steps, your external hard drive is encrypted and prevents users without password to access to the encrypted area on it. To encrypt files on external hard drive, please drag and drop them on the created secure area after opening it by correct password. It is very easy and convenient.