How to protect data on a flash drive / SSD from prying eyes?

Question

Data protection

I have a 250 GB external SSD on which I store very personal information - family photos, videos taken in my young and crazy years, photos of my girlfriend - in general, all that. I would like to somehow secure the data on this SSD from prying eyes (from viewing, copying and distributing) if it accidentally falls into the wrong hands. I don't need a super-level of protection, but at least protect against the average user who can google "how to crack zip password".

Answer 1

bitlocker

Answer 2

- VeraCrypt
Create a cryptocontainer on the disk, if necessary - work with it as a virtual disk, where all your files are, after entering the password.
Cons: it can be erased; forget your password - lose your files.
- a separate storage disk stored in a place inaccessible to outsiders (you can combine the method with the previous one)
- for long-term storage without periodic connection, it is better to use an HDD
- if the data is really dear to you, take care of backup, do not store them in a single copy, and, preferably, in one location

Answer 3

If this is a flash drive and only Windows - there are flash drives with hardware encryption. If you do not trust - either a cryptocontainer, or just rar with a password like "Ten thousand monkeys in the ass of the banana" diluted with numbers and special characters (or just an auto-generator), but you must not forget such a password .