Rugged travel/storage case for hard drive

October 21, 2008 12:03 PM

Rugged travel/storage case for hard drive?

I'm getting an eSATA cradle that should make swapping hard drives around almost as easy as swapping USB flash memory sticks. But naked drives are fragile -- and I'd like to be able to leave one with a family member for remote backup, or bike with one to work, and still have some hope of it working.

A standard 3.5" hard drive is 4" x 5.75" x 1". I was thinking of an Otter Box, but they all seem to be too narrow -- interior dimensions less than 4" wide. The Pelican 1060 is enough bigger that it would rattle around inside. (But arguably this is a feature, so I could build a shock-absorbing elastic suspension cage and put that inside it.)

Anyone know of a case that's just right? I'm just looking to stow away a naked drive with no electronic access to it while it's in the case; I'm not looking for the expensive ruggedized enclosures.

posted by Zed_Lopez to technology (3 comments total)

For drive storage, I've always used the packaging that comes in a retail box with a hard drive. Generally it's a big block of foam with a hard-drive shaped hole cut out of the middle. That could likely be cut down to fit into a small case, or even just a box.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 1:40 PM on October 21, 2008

The Pelican cases usually come with (or you can buy separately) foam that can be cut to the exact size of your item.
posted by sharkfu at 5:42 PM on October 21, 2008

I am in the process of converting my pile of external hard drives to a smaller number of bare drives and a drive dock, so I've been looking at cases for bare hard drives as well. I was going to buy these cases from WiebeTech. I'll be watching the thread to see what other ideas pop up here.
posted by rglasmann at 5:46 AM on October 22, 2008