Password Protect one volume of an existing external drive?

krs


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Running El Capitan on 2012 Mini

I have an external drive with two volumes that I created some years ago.

One volume has a couple of folders in it which I initially created as encrypted .dmg folders before I added data (using Disk Utility)

Now I would like to password protect that whole volume which currently two enrypted folders and a dozen regular folders.

Up until now, I thought one always had to create an encrypted folder first and then add the files/folders, but now I came across this option using the finder to password protect an existing external hard drive or volume.
How to Password Protect External Hard Drives on Mac and Windows | Beebom

Am I reading this right?
method 1 - Using the finder will encrypt an existing volume without affecting the data on that volume

Has anyone done that?
Idon't want to do it and then find out that all the data on that volume was erased during the process
 
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I believe, but have not done it, that if you encrypt a file/folder/volume after data is on it, it will take longer. It depends on how much data needs to be encrypted.
 

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