What can I buy to protect an external hard drive from fall damage?
by admin on Monday, September 6th, 2010 | 4 Comments
My friend’s hard drive wires was entangled with my laptop wires. When I moved my laptop, the hard drive fell 6 inches, and even though the fall was slowed by the tension of the wires, it still broke.
I want to replace the hard drive, but I also want to invest in some external protection for it so something like this doesn’t happen again. Are there any cases that I can put on the new one that will protect it?
Related External Hard Drive Sites
- Tension grows as September 11 anniversary approaches | World News – Heard Now
- Paul M. Jones » Blog Archive » The Central Tension Of Programming
- Tension eases after Hezbollah, Lebanon PM vowed to end political bickering | Ya Libnan | World News Live from Lebanon
- Louis Walsh talks about tension between Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue @ Unreality TV
- External Hard Drive Repair | PC Maintenance
There is nothing you do to avoid impact, even though IBM had a marketing scheme with their notebooks that were able to detect free fall and secure the actuator arm. I believe that was not inside the drive itself, but I separate sensor/program(?)
What I would suggest is investing in a Velcro leash or simply have a Velcro pad on your lid that you can slap it onto. Cheap and effective. Available in any craft store near you.
And yes the ultimate protection would be a solid state drive, as there is NO moving parts
Bubble wrap.
Bubble wrap??
I am not aware of anything you can purchase like that because 1) each manufacturer makes their drive a different size and shape, and 2) the drives usually have air vents that can not be blocked without overheating the drive.
What I did with mine was to get a couple of the plastic "ties" that you often see around groups of wires, and was able to thread the tie through the vent grid on the drive and then around a bar on the bookcase where the drive sets so that it can not fall. If you are creative you should be able to come up with a similar idea. Maybe velcro it in place????
The first issue is whether he drive fell while in use. If in use the drive head will crash into the platter causing the drive to fail. This is where the term hard drive crash came from. No case will protect the drive sufficiently if the hard drive drops while in use. The platters spin at 7200 rpm at one millionth of a inch above the platter. It does not take much to upset that delicate of a setup. There are laptop hard drives that can detect sudden acceleration (ie drop) and park the hard drive head immediately.
Any case should be able to protect the hard drive from drops while at rest. Most external drives are design to withstand a mild amount of abuse.
An SSD would not have this problem since they are non mechanical but this would be an expensive option.