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Question

How to carry Portable hard ?

Feb 21, 2016 10:33AM PST

Guys i have recently purchased portable hard disk .
Transcend 1TB StoreJet 25M3
I am intending to make backup of my important data and take portable hard with me as i am going out of country for work purposes. I will not be needing laptop and hence will not be taking laptop with me.
I am confused as to how I should travel with Hard. Mean hard are usually prone to damage. How can i avoid such damage. As the data is important.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I carry such in my carryon.
Feb 21, 2016 10:52AM PST

I've never lost such a drive but your post SCREAMS of issues. It sounds like this is your one and only copy of the content. This is not good computing practice. I'd put a copy up on my DropBox and at my company server so I can lose the drive and keep working.

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Answer
Don't worry too much about it
Feb 22, 2016 8:45AM PST

All hard drives are quite safe and stable when they are powered off. You can drop them, toss them around, mail them, etc. with no ill effects. It's when they are running that you need to be concerned. When powered off the read/write heads are parked on a nylon ramp safely off the platters, and unless it takes a serious hit at just the right angle, they will stay there safely.

However when a drive is running those same read/write heads are gliding on on a cushion of air just a few microns above the platter surface which they should never touch. Doesn't take much to damage them then, which is why most externals fail faster than internal drives (people move it around while it's running).

Also, Transcend does sometimes have Seagate drives inside, in which case it's a ticking time bomb of failure no matter what you do. Hopefully you got one of the ones which is Samsung inside.