problem with home directory encryption: Hard Drive Not Big Enough!

[Old Jimma]

Hi Community:

I tried to encrypt my home directory this evening using the directions at: http://www.howtogeek.com/116032/how-...alling-ubuntu/.

The directions seemed easy.

When I got to the step of encrypting my home directory from a superuser account I used:

sudo ecryptfs-migrate-home -u homedirectoryname

... and I got the error message that my hard drive wasn't big enough!

And, of course my home director wasn't encrypted because of this!

My home director is a separate hard drive from the SSD that has the Ubuntu Opperating System on it.

What do I have to do to have an encrypted hard drive? Do I need to buy a larger drive, and do a copy from the old one to the new one, then try to encrypt?

If I need a drive, how large should it be??

I'll be grateful for your advice!

Sincerely,
Old Jimma from the Old Country

[Vladlenin5000]

*First of all I must make clear that I've never done this therefore the following thoughts are just speculation.*

I suspect the method you linked works for the simple partitioning - /home is a folder inside / - but not for a separated /home partition. Why? Please note that

The migration command will create a backup on your computer

therefore it needs as much free space as the total occupied by /home. It should work nice and easy for a fresh installation within a big enough drive. The command will use the remaining free space in / for the backup.
I have absolutely NO CLUE how it would play with a separated /home. I suppose it'll try to backup the whole /home including its free space...
Also waiting for other inputs.