I'm going to be forced to move from here sooner or later, likely sooner.
All my pathetic life's digital data is on a bunch of (redundant in 6+ copies now) 2.5" (and one 3.5", the oldest) mechanical USB hard disks which spend nearly all of their time in a safe.
Naturally, I won't be moving with them inside the safe.
I plan to empty the safe from the disks, wrap each one individually in a cloth (or several cloths), then put all of those together into a big bundle which I wrap other, bigger cloths around until it's a big ball of padded external HDDs.
Also will do the same for the internal SSDs and one internal HDD that's actually in my computer. (Won't have them rattling around in there.)
All this will be padded multiple extra times and put in a backpack which I will carry on my back or holding in my hands, or keeping in my lap while riding the car to the new location. I will try to make sure that all of the HDDs are facing the right side up, and that they are as "flat" as possible compared to the ground.
Surely this must be sufficient for them to not rattle 'n roll themselves to a broken state?
After all, they are powered down, with the "needles" not hovering above the discs inside. Is this not a safe strategy? Is it really important to have them "lying down" and "the right side up"? Are there dangers on the way? Something I should think about that I haven't considered?
I know that there are professional packages made for rich companies to transport their HDDs, but I don't really have any money to spare, and since I will be personally holding the heavily padded backpack, surely that must be much better than just having a package in a truck's cargo?
Am I possibly even overthinking this?
