Question about vehicle mobile hard drives?

Anyone know who makes a laptop hard drive that would be suitable for vehicle mobile use?

What would one look for in a hard drive to go vehicle mobile?

We see that the police and utility companies are using Panasonic Toughbooks. We got a hold of a Panasonic CF-29 and CF-17 and inspected the hard drives. They seem to be mounted in a Cage with extra Polymers or Bumpers. We are thinking this helps cushion the hard drive, which in turn protects it from damage while hitting bumps while driving. At this time however these Toughbooks are out of our price range. So would be the Dell Latitude ATG.

Have read about hard drives that are shock-mounted but offer no active hard-drive protection such as an accelerometer. Have researched for a hard drive that would be good for vehicle mobile with little to no luck.

Basically, were looking for some one who can explain or point us in the right direction for hard drives and/or laptops that would hold up well in vehicle use while on a tight budget? (Approximately $1200)

Thank you,

Skid

 

Little vibrations to the hard drive is ok. So when you're on the road its fine unless you're going through crazy jacked up roads. I would guess any hdd out there would be great.

 

Thanks for your reply azntiger1000. Sorry for the late response to it.

We had a Dell about 4 years ago now where we damaged 2 hard drives while using them mobile. Recently, my work got me the Panasonic Toughbook and so far so good. We can’t help but believe there must be some thing giving those Toughbooks better vibration resistance.

We probably will place an order for the Dell D630. To help protect its hard drive we will order the AirDesk from
http://www.airdesks.com/cardesk.asp, which hopefully will help, eliminate any vibrations. We may even mount the SHOCK AND VIBRATION ISOLATOR PLATE from Gamber Johnson. You can see the plate here http://concept.gamberjohnson.com/catalog/itemView.jsp?siId=7110-0719 and another one of there designs here http://concept.gamberjohnson.com/catalog/itemView.jsp?siId=NP-ISO-30.

Welcome your or anyone else’s thoughts on this topic.

Thanks again,
Skid

 

I believe Seagate is coming out with a harddrive that has a built in accelerometer. It's basically IBM's Airbag system all built in to the drive.

 

SSD if you can afford it and must run windows or get a pair of 2/4G USB flash drive and run linux if you are budget limited.

 

Fujitsu has some 4200rpm drives designed for rough use. They are pretty cheap too coming in at like 50-60 bucks for an 80gb drive.

 

Thanks for the reply tebore.

You said “I believe Seagate is coming out with a harddrive that has a built in accelerometer. It's basically IBM's Airbag system all built in to the drive”.

We were unaware of this. If you have any more information on the Seagate’s please forward it to us.

Meanwhile we will do a search and see what we can find.

Thanks again,

Skid

 

Thanks for your post chimpanzee.

You said “SSD if you can afford it and must run windows or get a pair of 2/4G USB flash drive and run linux if you are budget limited”.

We thought of the Solid State Drives but at this time there just too pricey. We do look forward to when they become affordable. Maybe in 2 to 5 years we could afford it.

As far as the Linux goes… we never used it. This may be a good idea however. We read in the QST amateur radio magazine that you can order the flash drive with Linux already installed on it. We would need to see if running Linux – while out on the road anyway – if we could do what we wanted the laptop to do while on the road. This is basically, checking email while using Verizon’s EVDO system or with local WIFI at the coffee shops and surfing the web with whatever Browser they Linux uses. If you have any good resources on how to setup and run Linux in this way please let me know.

Thanks again post and the idea – you got me thinking,

Skid

 

Thanks for your post dietcokefiend.

You said, “Fujitsu has some 4200rpm drives designed for rough use. They are pretty cheap too coming in at like 50-60 bucks for an 80gb drive”.

We were unaware of the Fujitsu drives for rough use. Would you have any links showing info on these drives?

Thanks again,

Skid

 

I'm running my hp dv9205us in my car on a laptop mount i got off eBay. I've taken several long trips on some pretty bumpy roads and I've seen zero negative side effects. I figure most laptop hard drives are made for some wear and tear and short of you dropping yours, it's going to be okay.

 

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=412&pgno=1

There's a link to the review. Looks like it's already out it's the 7200.2 line.

 

You may try this http://grml.org/

It has pretty good hardware support and has all the apps needed(and can install from the network if there is anything not included). Setting Wifi is pretty easy(so long the network device is supported).

The only thing I am not sure is EVDO which may need some manual tweaking as it is not some commonly used stuff. Doable but can be a bit scary for non-linux users.

http://www.linux.com/articles/52729

linux on thumb is the cheapest option and available now. I have an ultraportable(< 1Kg, 1024x600) which the HDD is dying and hard to change. It is bought to be used exactly for the purpose like you mentioned.

And HDD do have problems, be it bad luck or whatever.

Another advantage of linux on thumb is that I can take it any where and borrow someone else's machine. Or grab some elcheapo one on ebay. notebook is the last thing I want to worry about when I am on vacation.

Actually the newly announced Asus EEE is very interesting for this purpose too.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=522

 

Thanks tebore!

That’s a nice looking hard drive and the website did a great job reviewing it. We appreciate your giving us the link. We saved all 7 pages. Plan on checking the website more in depth also.

Thanks again,

Skid

 

Thanks for the info chimpanzee.

Went to the all the links you gave and read most of the first two. The second Link is really involved and we will have to reread it again. We will talk to some people we know that have used Linux and get some more info and experience.

As far as for the Asus EEE found it interesting. At this time were looking at IBM, Sony and Dell. Will probably go with the Dell.

Thanks again for your time and input,

Skid

 

Here was a link to one of the tougher fujitsu drives on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822153025

not in stock right now, but if you look up its model number you could probably find another retailer show sold one from that series.