How to transport harddrives

mdebets

I'm moving to Germany soon and are looking how to best move my harddrives to Germany.
I have a few external harddrives and a few internal harddrives (which are stored in Icy Boxes at the moment).
What's the best way to packages these drives (don't have original boxes anymore) and what's the best service to ship them with?

mp22

Bubble wrap,bring the drives with you,ie hand luggage on the plane.

rolliepoley

Can you not just carrie the icybox with you.

mdebets

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately, I can't carry the Icy Boxes on the flight, as it would be two, plus the external drives that don't fit into the boxes and I have some other stuff that I need to carry on the plane, so I have to ship them.

coylemj

As already advised, if the original packaging is no longer available then bubble wrap is the way to go. HDDs can tolerate reasonably rough handing when they are switched off as the r/w heads are parked away from the platters. It's when the discs are spinning that they are at their most vulnerable since the r/w heads are floating above the spinning platters and a heavy knock could cause a head crash.

Ordinary bubblewrap shouldn't be used directly in contact with an internal HDD. There's a risk of static damage to the exposed PCB. Use an anti-static bag to shield the drive first, or anti-static bubblewrap.