Transporting new hard drives
 

I've been requested by a friend to bring over four server hard drives to Sweden because they are about 70% cheaper over here. I'm more than happy to oblige because I have plenty of room in my luggage. The question is should I put them in my checked bag or carry-on? If in checked bag, they will be surrounded by clothing (with a layer of bubble wrap). Is that sufficient?

If it should be in my carry-on, suggestions are welcome.

Carry on, in whatever kind of padding you can manage.

If they're in the original packaging, they should be physically OK in checked luggage surrounded as you described, as I can't imagine checked luggage is treated much worse than FedEx or UPS treats packages, and that's how they'd normally be shipped.

The bigger concern with checked luggage is theft, since drives in their original packaging may scream "steal me". Depending how much they cost, you may want to carry them on for that reason. If you're talking $200 SATA drives, no big deal, but if you're carrying expensive SAS drives (which "server" suggests), then I'd carry them on just like anything else valuable.

bob

These are HP 72GB SCSI 10k RPM drives. Each drive is in its own sealed static bag wrapped in bubble wrap. Purchased for $42 each.

Drop them in your carry on. I've done that for transport to London and it worked just fine. Make sure you declare them at customs on arrival or the cost of the import could go up significantly if you are caught with them (which is rather unlikely).

Hahahahaha! Almost fell out of my chair when reading the line above (bolding mine).

But seriously, advice so far is good. Lots of padding, don't check. That should work fine.

Hey, I didn't say checked luggage was treated well! :-)

I've received UPS/FedEx packages that were trashed just as badly as any checked luggage I've seen.

At $42 each, I'd just throw them in a suitcase, unless I happened to have spare carry-on space easily available.

Bob

Pack'em in a guitar case and fly United. Guitars currently get extra gentle treatment :)

at $42 each, buy a couple extras in case there is a problem with one of them. as i recall, the impact resistance spec on those things is pretty impressive. they are supposed to survive a laptop drop from 4', or some such.

A SCSI drive in a laptop? That's unusual.

/dnastudios

Update...

Given that my duffel bag was on the cusp of 50lbs, and I had no way to properly protect the drives in my golf bag, they were put into my carry-on backpack with no issues.

I'm just glad I don't have to lug them home!

"Make sure you declare them at customs on arrival or the cost of the import could go up significantly if you are caught with them (which is rather unlikely)."

SBM, what on earth are you smoking??? The value of these drives are slightly more than GBP 100, there is no reason WHATSOEVER that he or anyone else needs to declare anything to anyone about them.

Just hope they don't get stolen. I've left several electronic items in their retail packages in my luggage and had them stolen before. Seems like they were stolen because they were in the retail pack. Just be careful.

another key in shipping them is the anti-static bag, which is just as important as bubble wrap.

I can understand a laptop dropping from 4 feet and not damaging the hard drive. That is if it is off at the time or the computer has something similar to ThinkPad's active hard drive protection. The biggest problem when dropping a computer when it is on is the needle damaging the discs on impact.

Think of an record player, if you drop a closed record player with a record in it. While they were well before my time, the likely damage point is the reader thingie what ever it is called.

Most hard drives, when turned off and "parked" (happens automatically nowadays) can be subjected to insanely high G forces before damage occurs. Personally, If the bubble wrap was too much, I'd take it off, leave them in their anti-static bags, and place them between my clothes.