My plan is to put them in anti static bags and then into those rubber cases. I plan to plug these into the DROBO PRO every month to spin the drives and ensure that all is in order or replace any drives gone bad. Hopefully no more than 2 as I’ll have dual drive redundancy. I have a couple of questions:
Are these good or have you seen a better product to protect the drives?
I’m concerned about the few minutes that the drives are out. That is when I’m pulling them out of the antistatic bags and into the drobo pro and then out of the pro and into the bags. How do I minimize any possible damage to the drives from being out while they are being switched?
If you have any tips on storing drives, please provide them.
I’m confused. Do U have two Drobos or DroboPros? Do U know the formats of the Drobo & DroboPro are not compatible meaning DroboPro will not recoginize the data residing on the Drobo & vice versa?
Unless you have a relatively “dry” & hi static environment, I don’t see the advantages of buying of thoses rubber enclosure that any hi-quality anti-static bag can do the job. Yes, even they cost under 2 bucks!
I have a bunch of those silicone drive protectors, they works fine. They’ll protect drives from casual bumps and jolts but still don’t protect from a real fall.
The nice this is you can still see the top of the drive and one end, and of course can still connect and use the drive.
They also stack very well - there are matching bumps and pits.
Also, that price is GREAT - especially since you get both a 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch sleeve. I spent a good amount more per-sleeve on eBay for just 3.5-inch sleeves.
You might have some trouble fitting the drive in anti-static bag into the sleeve - the bag will make the fit funny - unless you do a good job of wrapping/tucking.
If dust/debris is an issue, then you might go for a covered box like the one from Startech but those are significantly more expensive.
If you have 8+ drives, you may just want to find a hard drive shipping box - the ones that bare drives ship in. I have one with molded styrofoam with cutouts for about 14 or more drives in it.
Or you could use a Pelican case to store them too. That’s how we ship our disk pack for our DroboPro at work.
All depends on your preference and budget.
…and now I’m going to go order me more sleeves, because I keep liberating random hard drives from equipment.
They are like plastic tape cases apparently made of anti static material and with foam around the case.
I do have the packaging the drives were shipped in so I guess I could put the drives in anti static bags and into the packaging.
I might just go with the Hudzee cases though, I don’t like the idea of paying $7 for what is basically a video tape case but I cannot afford to lose my data.
What about the few minutes that the drive is out in the open while it is being swapped between the DroboPro and the case - should I be concerned about that or is that not a big deal?
Cute. Makes sense if you’re actually “shelving” drives for archives, as there are lots of VHS tape-friendly enclosures to choose from. We used to have some vertical sliding ones (like bookshelves, but they slid into a central unit) in the library where I worked.
As long as you’re not generating static (which may be the case in dry environments), the few minutes the drives are “bare” isn’t a concern.
Don’t touch the circuit board or interface connectors. If you’re really paranoid, you could get an anti-static wrist-strap but that’d require something to ground to.
