Should I encrypt my external drive?

If it holds anything sensitive and travels or could be lost or stolen, yes. Encryption scrambles the data so it is useless to anyone without your password. The main risk is your own forgetfulness: lose the password and you lose the data, so back up the key and the data separately.

Does encrypting a drive slow it down?

On modern hardware, barely. Built-in encryption is hardware-accelerated and the speed difference is usually unnoticeable for everyday use. The small performance cost is well worth it for protecting sensitive data on a portable drive.

What happens if I forget my drive encryption password?

The data is effectively gone, since that is the whole point of strong encryption. There is no backdoor. So save your password or recovery key somewhere safe and separate, and keep a backup of the data itself, so a forgotten password is an inconvenience, not a disaster.

Should You Encrypt Your External Drive?

Published: September 22, 2026

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📊 As of 28 September 2026, the typical HDD on Amazon.co.uk is £153/TB or £0.153/GB across the 3,350 live listings we track, with the widest choice of drives priced around £61.6/TB or £0.062/GB. The best deals on Amazon.co.uk start from about £299 for 8TB (£37.4/TB), £367 for 14TB (£26.2/TB) and £612 for 20TB (£30.6/TB). The current best value is 14TB at roughly £26.2 per TB.

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Carrying sensitive files on a drive that leaves the house, and wondering whether to encrypt it? For anything private that travels, the answer is usually yes.

Encryption scrambles your data so that without the password it is meaningless gibberish. Lose the drive, and a stranger gets nothing. That is genuinely valuable peace of mind.

But there is one catch to respect, so let me lay it out.

The table above shows the live price per TB on your marketplace for reliable storage worth protecting.

What encryption actually does

Simply put, it locks your data behind a key.

When a drive is encrypted, the data on it is scrambled. Only someone with the password or key can unscramble and read it. To anyone else, even if they have the physical drive in hand, it is useless noise.

So if your encrypted drive is lost or stolen, your files are safe. The thief gets a paperweight, not your documents, photos or logins.

When it is genuinely worth it

Reach for encryption in these cases.

A portable drive that travels with you, where loss or theft is a real risk.
Anything holding sensitive personal, financial or work data.
A backup of important files you would not want exposed if the drive went missing.

For a drive that never leaves a locked room and holds nothing sensitive, encryption is optional. For anything portable and private, it is a smart, simple layer of protection.

The one big catch: do not lose the key

Here is the risk you must respect.

Strong encryption has no backdoor. That is the point. So if you forget the password or lose the key, your data is gone, just as surely as if the drive failed.

So protect yourself.

Save the password or recovery key somewhere safe and separate from the drive.
Keep a backup of the actual data too, ideally also encrypted, so a forgotten password is an annoyance, not a catastrophe.

Treated carefully, this catch is easily managed. Treated carelessly, it can lock you out of your own files.

Does it slow the drive down?

Barely, on modern hardware.

Built-in encryption on current computers is hardware-accelerated, so for everyday use you will struggle to notice any speed difference. The tiny performance cost is well worth the protection for sensitive, portable data.

The bottom line

You should encrypt an external drive if it holds anything sensitive and could be lost or stolen, which covers most portable drives. Encryption makes your data useless to anyone without the key, for almost no performance cost.

Just respect the catch: save your recovery key separately and keep a backup, because a forgotten password means lost data. Do that, grab a reliable drive at the best price per TB from the live table above, and your private files stay private wherever the drive goes. Simple protection that is well worth the tiny efort.

What encryption actually does

When it is genuinely worth it

The one big catch: do not lose the key

Does it slow the drive down?

The bottom line

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