Is there a risk for HDD being loosely packaged for transportation?

devnull

4/10/23, 2:29 PM

I have received two HDDs (for a NAS) in a loosely package and not really sure if it is safe to keep them. My concern is that they might have been damaged during transportation. Although it doesn't seem particularly dangerous to me all major manufacturers say it is inproper packaging. Do you think there's a risk or they should be just fine?

2 HDD arrived packaged like this

0 + 0

network-attached-storage

hdd

yagmoth555

4/10/23, 2:40 PM

I seen such packaging in the past, it seem bad, but not extreme. Does it travelled a lof ? like from China with multiple hop, or more just between two city ?

devnull

4/10/23, 4:30 PM

Not a lot, between two cities.

Paul

4/10/23, 5:53 PM

Also depends on the carrier. I forget who did the tests, but one of the webzines put accelerometers in boxes shipped and in the U.S. the USPS was the best, and it was by a longshot, IIRC. Also, it's usually rapid acceleration that causes problems, so even if it is "loose", but adequately padded, the acceleration experienced by the box contents isn't actually very high.

Score:1

Server

John Mahowald

4/12/23, 1:48 PM

Look up the environmental specifications for this model of disk. Probably the non-operating shock tolerance will be decent, for a device that pushes known physics to encode tiny bits of information. A drop from 2 meters will probably be damaging on a hard surface, but the acceleration greatly depends on how the stop is cushioned by packaging. Bubble wrap can cushion quite well, even if the box is not a tight fit.

Drives are a point of failure already. Use them in an array that can tolerate a drive loss. Back up data to other storage media.

If you wish to complain to whomever shipped you those drives, take some measurements to support your hypothesis. Install shock sensors in the original packaging. Maybe actual drives, if doing returns or using spares. Do a drop test from a short height. Send it through the same delivery service. Should the acceleration exceed specifications, that would be concerning.

0 + 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Is there a risk for HDD being loosely packaged for transportation?

TH: มีความเสี่ยงที่ HDD จะถูกบรรจุอย่างหลวมๆ สำหรับการขนส่งหรือไม่?

RO: Există riscul ca HDD-ul să fie împachetat liber pentru transport?

RU: Есть ли риск того, что жесткий диск будет неплотно упакован при транспортировке?

VI: Có rủi ro nào đối với ổ cứng được đóng gói lỏng lẻo để vận chuyển không?

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.