First post on these alternative sites so forgive any mistakes. My external hard drive (a small travel one) was enclosed in a padded hard-shell case like this one but I’m still worried. When I went on vacation, I had the hard drive in a bag that I was dragging down the (carpeted) stairs. I don’t know if the protective case was intended to shock absorb something like that and had I realized sooner that the HDD was in the bag, I would’ve packed it away with the laptop instead.

Should I replace the drive before something happens or do those cases shock absorb?

  • BestBouclettes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Usually the issues with hard drives come from the heads. If the head is parked and the drive is not spinning, it can handle a bit of abuse before breaking. If the drive is plugged in and spinning then it becomes fairly fragile, even though most drives know to park the head in case of a fall. Also, in any case it’s always better to have a backup of your data, just in case.