Formatting external SSD, how to encrypt ?

[paulCC]

Hello, i am preparing an external SSD for use. I am a little puzzled by the APFS encryption options. I can encrupt the whole container, and each volume in the container.
Is there a reason to have both the conbainer and the volumes encrypted separately ? Or if I encrypt the container, does it protect access to the volumes as well ? If I encrypt container and volumes, do I need to provide encryption password(s) multiple times ?

As I will be the only user of the external drive, I do not need some unencrypted volume for sharing.

Thanks for any info, Paul.

 

[bogdanw]

Cautionary thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/using-recovery-key-on-external-non-bootable-drive.2377534/
Apple: "Protect your Mac information with encryption" https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/protect-your-mac-information-with-encryption-mh40593/mac

 

[smithrh]

If you're the only user, just go for the whole drive. No need to complicate things further.

But as bogdanw's post indicates, for Pete's sake don't lose the password. You are well and truly out of luck if you do.