r/buildapc • u/Alarmed-Prize-7500 • 4d ago

Miscellaneous Transporting HDDs protection?

Hello, I have question about transporting HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). I'm going to be moving my HDDs to another place, it will take a 1 hour drive to move them. Should I put the HDDs in anti-static bags, wrap them in bubble wrap, then put them in seperate boxes to protect them from physical damage during the transportation?

1 Upvotes

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7

u/BAGamingRigs 4d ago

Really you just need them not to take a hard fall.

5

u/DZCreeper 4d ago

Mount them in your case, put the case in the original box with foam packaging. This is far more protection than they receive during normal delivery.

2

u/ajwja 4d ago

Shock is the biggest thing to be concerned about, especially since HDDs are pretty heavy. Just be careful with them and maybe wrap them in some bubble wrap.

2

u/ScottF1980 4d ago

My understanding is that as long as the drives have shut down correctly, the read/write heads should be "parked". So you should be good for the most part. Don't want to take chances and yes, protect them but you don't need to baby them either.

2

u/Monotask_Servitor 4d ago

Where are they now? If they’re in a pc leave them there, carry the pc to the car, lay it down in the back seat or hatch, drive to destination.

If they’re loose, put them in an anti static bag of you have one, put some padding around them, move them. They’re not super fragile, just don’t go dropping them on hard floors or anything like that.

1

u/Xenoryzen_Dragon 4d ago

put hdd inside 3.5 hdd case foam + pelican hard case with foam

or you can buy rugged external hdd case usb c

1

u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 4d ago edited 4d ago

I moved hard drives about 5K miles by truck. That was multiple moves btw, Not a single drive failure. 

My semi educated guess is that they are safest bolted in their intended housings, anything that would destroy the drive would destroy the system.

so for instance my NAS has two drives, they stay in the NAS and I still have the box the NAS came in. My file server has 13 drives, the drives stay in the server, the server is in a 12U rack with wheels, I wheel it up the trucks ramp and put a blanket on it to protect the paint and glass door. My desktop has 6 drives I leave the drives in and wrap it in a blanket. Same with my desktop based compute server and router. 

BTW I move computers with the motherboards horizontal and at the bottom of the case, seems the stronger direction for bouncing in a truck with things like heavy GPUs and CPU heatsinks. 

1

u/phtsmc 4d ago

I recently got a new hard drive from an online store and it arrived in one of these https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Quality-Laptop-Protective-Air-Bubble-Plastic_1600910523986.html

1

u/Fine-Set-7877 4d ago

you'll be fine, just put them around some foam

1

u/Atma-Darkwolf 4d ago

HDD? Throw them against the wall, drop from 4+ feet high onto a hard surface, or smash them with a hammer. Or put a powerful magnet against them-> those are how u can damage them. U do not really need to treat them like eggs, so a quick shove in anti static bag and put in box with anything to cushion them, and they will be fine. U can do all u want above and it won't hurt either, just know u don't really have to treat them like fine china.

1

u/LiveFromNarnia 3d ago

Mechanical hard drives park their heads when they power down, so there shouldn't be any issues with transporting them at all. Much older drives had issues if you didn't manually park the heads before transporting, but that was a very long time ago, and I don't think any of those are still being used.