External Hard Drive Carrying Case?

So, I recently bought a 1TB Cavalry External Hard drive here, and I'd like a good, protective carrying case for it since I'd like to travel with it when I go overseas for an internship. Not too sure of its dimensions, but if it's similar to the other Cavalry 1TB model, it should be around: 7.8" x 4.5" x 1.3". It'd be good if the carrying case had space for adapter/cables as well, but I'm mostly looking for something that provides a bit of padding and shock resistance for the hard drive, since I'll be taking it with me inside my backpack onto the plane.

Anyone know of any good brands/models? So far, I've only seen Case Logic cases, but they seem to be a bit on the large/bulky side, and according to reviews, don't provide much padding at all. I noticed that a lot of people buy these Case Logic cases for their Eee PCs as well, so I started wondering about possible eee pc sleeves that might fit this hard drive. I looked at the smallest ZeroShock, but that was too large for me. I'm looking for something that fits the smaller eee PCs (like the 8+" x 6" x 1.33" ones).

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

If you're looking at serious protection you could look at a Pelican or Hardigg case.

We use Hardigg cases for everything from hard disk/tape to rifle/ammo portage.

The IM2050 is sized for small hard disks. If you want room for cables, AC adapters etc perhaps a slightly bigger one might be a good idea.

 

Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll have to look around some more for cases that don't make me look like I should be wearing a hard hat and going to a construction site or heading to some military operation while I carry it. XD Another consideration is that it should fit into my backpack.

Right now, I've got my eye tentatively on these padded cubes. I can manage to fit my digital camera in those too.

 

Do not let your hard drive fall/slip/bump into anything. They are extremely sensitive, and the slightest drop destroyed my maxtor 500

 

Man, now I'm paranoid. On the one hand, these drives must be able to survive a plane ride, or how else would they be shipped around the world? On the other hand, maybe I don't need all my iTunes/Amazon music/videos with me when I go on that internship if damage ends up hurting the hard drive.

 

I wouldn't be too concerned about a non-powered hard drive being transported. As long it's not a hard drop onto a hard surface, you shouldn't have any problems. A soft case or having the hard drive packed between clothes will survive just fine.

The hard drive head (which reads the data off the disk) is docked safely off the disk when the hard drive is off. It's sort of like the old vinyl record players. When the hard drive is running, there's a very very small buffer between the HD head and disk, that's why it's very easy to damage a HD due to contact.

In laptops, what the active protection does is basically park the head off the disk so the disk isn't scratched and the head isn't damaged.

With the hard drive off, you'll be perfectly fine transporting it in your backpack. As long as you're not dropping your backpack on the floor all the time I would not be concerned at all.

 

Well - it's not that simple. The entire HDD is a mechanically delicate object. While you may not suffer head damage during transit on an impact, there's plenty else to go wrong, resulting in the same thing - dead HDD.

While it doesn't need to be treated like a Ming vase, it pays to be careful.

 

So, what I'm curious about is - is a hard drive in an external enclosure more prone to being damaged than a hard drive in a laptop? Maybe because laptops are better designed to protect the HDD? I say this because I treated my old Toshiba pretty badly, no protective sleeve/pouch, constantly slamming my backpack down on the ground, even dropped it about 1 foot from my table, and it's still running somehow. I don't think I'd try something like this with my external HDD.

 

Laptop hard drives are designed to withstand vibration and movement much more so than desktop drives which are usually mounted in a chassis that doesn't move.

You'd be very very hard pressed to damage a HD that's simply being transported in a backpack short of having it dropped onto concrete multiple times.

If you take reasonable care, you DO NOT need a separate enclosure to enclose the hard drive enclosure for transport.