How would you ship a bare drive across the country?

For ESD protection, use the original packaging or an ESD bag.

For Shock-proofing, an older recomendation by Maxtor is to have
5cm (2in) of foam rubber in any direction and between the drives
when shipping multiple ones. This may seem excessive, but it will
very likely keep the drives alive even if thrown around.

And Maxtor return replacement drives in anti-static bag,
in a strong card box, with foam blocks holding the
drive centrally in the box.
Could be Maxtor have put the pack on a shaker
table, and done drop tests to optimise the density
of the foam.
They get dropped and thrown in transit.

Arno writes:


For ESD protection, use the original packaging or an ESD bag.

For Shock-proofing, an older recomendation by Maxtor is to have
5cm (2in) of foam rubber in any direction and between the drives
when shipping multiple ones. This may seem excessive, but it will
very likely keep the drives alive even if thrown around.

OR, with multiple drives, separate with piece of thin cardboard,
and tape together as a bundle; then bubble-wrap the bundle.

You don't want them banging into each other. So keep them
apart or together...


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Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

David Lesher wrote:
Arno writes:


For ESD protection, use the original packaging or an ESD bag.

For Shock-proofing, an older recomendation by Maxtor is to have
5cm (2in) of foam rubber in any direction and between the drives
when shipping multiple ones. This may seem excessive, but it will
very likely keep the drives alive even if thrown around.

OR, with multiple drives, separate with piece of thin cardboard,
and tape together as a bundle; then bubble-wrap the bundle.

You don't want them banging into each other. So keep them
apart or together...

Indeed.

Come to thonk of it you could also mount multiple drives
into a drive cage.

Arno

In message Arno
was claimed to have wrote:

David Lesher wrote:
Arno writes:


For ESD protection, use the original packaging or an ESD bag.

For Shock-proofing, an older recomendation by Maxtor is to have
5cm (2in) of foam rubber in any direction and between the drives
when shipping multiple ones. This may seem excessive, but it will
very likely keep the drives alive even if thrown around.

OR, with multiple drives, separate with piece of thin cardboard,
and tape together as a bundle; then bubble-wrap the bundle.

You don't want them banging into each other. So keep them
apart or together...

Indeed.

Come to thonk of it you could also mount multiple drives
into a drive cage.

I'm less of a fan of that idea, if the drive cage gets exposed to any
pressure (especially a crushing/twisting load), this could damage the
other drives, either applying load, or pulling/stripping the screws.

In article ,
DevilsPGD wrote:
In message Arno
was claimed to have wrote:

David Lesher wrote:
Arno writes:


For ESD protection, use the original packaging or an ESD bag.

For Shock-proofing, an older recomendation by Maxtor is to have
5cm (2in) of foam rubber in any direction and between the drives
when shipping multiple ones. This may seem excessive, but it will
very likely keep the drives alive even if thrown around.

OR, with multiple drives, separate with piece of thin cardboard,
and tape together as a bundle; then bubble-wrap the bundle.

You don't want them banging into each other. So keep them
apart or together...

Indeed.

Come to thonk of it you could also mount multiple drives
into a drive cage.

I'm less of a fan of that idea, if the drive cage gets exposed to any
pressure (especially a crushing/twisting load), this could damage the
other drives, either applying load, or pulling/stripping the screws.


I don't like anything that can come loose and rattle. A loose drive
inside a metal box padded box will be subject to G forces of it is
dropped.

For the same reason, I'd prefer shipping a bare drive over a drive in
a DIY external case.







--
Al Dykes
News is something someone wants to suppress, everything else is advertising.
- Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the Daily Mail

I don't like anything that can come loose and rattle. A loose drive
inside a metal box padded box will be subject to G forces of it is
dropped.

Carriers throw and drop things, packages can fall off conveyors.
A stout card outer, with optimal density and thickness of foam,
as used by Maxtor, seems the best bet.
Boxes I've received have obviously jad corner impacts, the
deformation of the card may help to reduce the G force
(just like auto crumple zones).

Andrew Hamilton wrote:
About a week ago, I asked for a recommendation for external enclosures
for hard drives. One of my needs was to carry the drive enclosures on
a plane, either in a carry-on item or in luggage.

Some people commented that the enclosures provided no protection for
the drive, except for scuffing. So now I'm thinking that I could
spend less money by buying just one enclosure and shipping the
additional drives bare.

What do I need to do to pack a bare drive an external drive
enclosure, so that I can ship it safely via UPS ground or UPS
second-day air.

As always thanks in advance.


I've actually done this myself. I shipped two drives in the same package
across the country. I just kept the drives in their original anti-static
ESD bags, put that into a bubble wrap which I curled up at the two
lateral ends to act as an extra soft bumper. Then just for added
protection, I put the two drives, bubble wrap and all into a flat-rate
box packed with packing peanuts. Of course, all of this added protection
will cost you money in shipping charges as the boxes will get bigger and
heavier. The flat rate boxes helped get around that limitation.

I'd say just wrapping them in bubble wrap two or three layers thick will
be sufficient.

Yousuf Khan

DevilsPGD wrote:
Don't use packing peanuts or similar, these do not hold items of weight
properly, the drive will end up on the bottom edge of the box with no
protection at all.

If there's enough packing peanuts on all sides of the drive, then it
won't even move inside it. I'd still bubble wrap them first and then put
them into the packing peanuts. The bubble wrap should absorb vibrational
impacts best, while the peanuts will absorb crushing weight on the outer
shell of the box.

Yousuf Khan

On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:53:32 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:



If you're using bubble-wrap, this is probably obvious, but wrap in
several directions so that the drive can't slip out of the bubblewrap.
I'd also recommend using small bubbles first, then moving to larger
bubbles if you have them, and/or an outer layer of crumpled paper.

Don't use packing peanuts or similar, these do not hold items of weight
properly, the drive will end up on the bottom edge of the box with no
protection at all.

Good points, thanks.

-AH

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:21:49 -0500, John Turco
wrote:



Hello, Andrew:

Please, avoid dealing with "bare drives" -- as indecent exposure is
illegal! G

Ya know, with all the news recently about that sex offender in CA, and
all those "Amber alerts," I guess I should watch what I say. Or worse
yet, try to take a "bare drive" through an airport security
checkpoint. Who knows what they will think?

-AH
~