Even if you are not worried about government, ISP’s and hackers trying to spy on you, there is still a good reason to encrypt your disks …as I saw when disaster struck and my little 2TB 2.5″ Seagate drive suddenly suffered instant death … I have to (had) to sent the defective disk to them for a warranty replacement. I can no longer access the disk, however I may be simple to just change the board and gain access to my 30 years of data (including stored passwords and ssl security keys. For me THAT alone justifies the effort to encrypt my disks. There was TrueCrypt open source and audited trusted and recommended. Then they suddenly closed shop (the last version is still available to access my (your) data). A successor emerged and made improvements. Thus I use Veracrypt. My external (backup, etc.) disks are encrypted and I use my Password Manager to keep track of the passwords needed to keep the disks safe and accessible.
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unit193/encryption
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sudo apt-get update
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 sudo apt-get install veracrypt
Once you have it installed there are good guides and background information on the developer’s site. You can:
- Encrypt an entire disk and access it normally after it is mounted by VeraCrypt …
- Create a “File” which is a virtual disk and can be mounted by VeraCrypt …
- Store encrypted VeraCrypt containers in the cloud or on your devices
I just love the peace of mind this gives me.
Nota Bene: Use a password manager for strong passwords and back-up the file regularly. IF you lose the password – there is NO WAY to decrypt your data!!!