Rugged External Hard Disk Drive
Discussion
Hi
I'm looking for an External Hard Disk Drive (EHDD) that is rugged enough to be sent by courier around the country for client's to copy data on to it and send it back with a reasonable level of confidence that a bit of typical courier bashing about won't have destroyed the data. I intend to keep the box it is delivered to me in when I buy it, so a normal EHDD might be OK, but I'd rather have the extra security of a device that is inherently more rugged. 200GB is the minimum size and I need a USB 2.0 connection. Any recommendations?
Thanks in advance,
roadie.
I'm looking for an External Hard Disk Drive (EHDD) that is rugged enough to be sent by courier around the country for client's to copy data on to it and send it back with a reasonable level of confidence that a bit of typical courier bashing about won't have destroyed the data. I intend to keep the box it is delivered to me in when I buy it, so a normal EHDD might be OK, but I'd rather have the extra security of a device that is inherently more rugged. 200GB is the minimum size and I need a USB 2.0 connection. Any recommendations?
Thanks in advance,
roadie.
Shouldn't be too bad, HDD's are much more rugged when switched off anyway. If you buy one mail order they'l just post it to you in a box full of polystyrene pebbles with an anti-static bag, so I'd suggest that would be fine.
Unplug all the leads when you post it though, don't leave one end plugged into the box if you see what I mean since its easy to break the USB or power connections in the case doing that.
HTH
Neil
Unplug all the leads when you post it though, don't leave one end plugged into the box if you see what I mean since its easy to break the USB or power connections in the case doing that.
HTH
Neil
www.olixir.com/
LaCie do a nice one, too, but it only goes up to 120GB AFAIK (You could probably switch the inards for another drive, though).
It's the packaging around that I'd be more concerned with, though... making sure it's in a biiiiiig box full of polystyrene bits whenever shipped, as mentioned above, etc.
LaCie do a nice one, too, but it only goes up to 120GB AFAIK (You could probably switch the inards for another drive, though).
It's the packaging around that I'd be more concerned with, though... making sure it's in a biiiiiig box full of polystyrene bits whenever shipped, as mentioned above, etc.
aldi said:
Shouldn't be too bad, HDD's are much more rugged when switched off anyway. If you buy one mail order they'l just post it to you in a box full of polystyrene pebbles with an anti-static bag, so I'd suggest that would be fine.
Yes, I did think about that. The thing that concerns me is that when it's purchased it doesn't have data on to be corrupted during the delivery process and I'm concerned that whilst it may be fine in terms of physical damage there could be data corruption.
aldi said:
Unplug all the leads when you post it though, don't leave one end plugged into the box if you see what I mean since its easy to break the USB or power connections in the case doing that.
Good point, will do.
Thanks for the help.
J_S_G said:
www.olixir.com/
LaCie do a nice one, too, but it only goes up to 120GB AFAIK (You could probably switch the inards for another drive, though).
It's the packaging around that I'd be more concerned with, though... making sure it's in a biiiiiig box full of polystyrene bits whenever shipped, as mentioned above, etc.
LaCie do a nice one, too, but it only goes up to 120GB AFAIK (You could probably switch the inards for another drive, though).
It's the packaging around that I'd be more concerned with, though... making sure it's in a biiiiiig box full of polystyrene bits whenever shipped, as mentioned above, etc.
I saw the Lacie one but as you say, it's limited in terms of its storage capacity unfortunately.
The Olixir products look very good indeed - more than rugged enough for my purposes. We're looking at buying one of these at the moment so thanks for bringing it to our attention.
roadsweeper said:
Yes, I did think about that. The thing that concerns me is that when it's purchased it doesn't have data on to be corrupted during the delivery process and I'm concerned that whilst it may be fine in terms of physical damage there could be data corruption.
Shaking it up and down doesnt mix up all your data, its not an etch-a-sketch you know
Edit: Its the durability of the case you need to worry about IMHO rather than the hard drive, I'd try and get one with an aluminium case rather than plastic.
Edited by aldi on Wednesday 21st June 10:33
aldi said:
Shaking it up and down doesnt mix up all your data, its not an etch-a-sketch you know
I do understand that - I'm involved at quite a deep level with secure data deletion via degaussers, specialist software, etc. so am familiar with magnetic storage technology. I was concerned about shock causing the EHDD head to contact the surface of the platter and hence cause data corruption. However, I'm glad I didn't say that in the first place or you probably wouldn't have posted the above!
roadsweeper said:
aldi said:
Shaking it up and down doesnt mix up all your data, its not an etch-a-sketch you know
I do understand that - I'm involved at quite a deep level with secure data deletion via degaussers, specialist software, etc. so am familiar with magnetic storage technology. I was concerned about shock causing the EHDD head to contact the surface of the platter and hence cause data corruption.
The heads do actually land on the disk when the drive is stopped, and there's a special landing area for the, or they are withdrawn from the disk platters altogether. So there shouldn't be a problem.
Good description here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_dis
Edited by zumbruk on Wednesday 21st June 14:31
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