So I am giving up my apartment in NYC to spend most of the rest of the year in California and then Thailand for a while.

I am flying JFK-SFO on UA p.s. in a few weeks and I am planning on taking all of my hard drives with me in my carry on because I don't really want them to go FedEx or anything either.

I've traveled with lots of gear before (flash heads, JackRabbit battery packs, several cameras) and I've either had a quick swab down of my bags and items or just passed right through. I usually have about 2 external (LaCie orange) hard drives on me when I'm normally traveling.

I don't have a problem with them swabbing them, I can even have my laptop on and plug some of them in for them (in the same way some places are making you prove your phone or laptop can turn on).
But, I thought I saw somewhere at one security line a notice about only being able to travel with like "2 extra batteries".
I don't want A) some TSA agent to think these are listed as batteries or B) them tell me that I can't carry that many of some strange square shape electronic device.