What kind of/levels of shock can you expect a normal laptop HDD to put up with?

"What kind of/levels of shock can you expect a normal laptop HDD to put up with?"

Well, thats the gist of the question, I've searched around on the site for ages and some threads are actually quite worrying:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=287536
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=304334

I'm planning on buying a laptop in the near future, and I've got everything sorted out (with regards to what I want) except for one thing.
The internal storage drive.

Two types, regular HDD and the newer SSD.
With one major advantage of the SSD being that it is much more shock resistant than the HDD (this is the only "buying factor" for me with regards to the hard drive -I'm willing to sacrifice space for durability)

What I wanted to know is, would a regular laptop HDD (say the one in the Dell Studio 15 laptop) be able to survive the shock from a 1 minute sprint after the bus? (assuming I run after the bus every day )

I've had mixed opinions, some say a laptop HDD would be perfectly fine unless you actually dropped the laptop, others say that even a low paced jog would damage the HDD.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance

 

I have normal hard drives in my laptop and i drive with them in my trunk to a Heliport and fly 1+ hours on a helicopter (with ALOT of vibration) multiplue times a year (26 times a year to be exact) and i've never had a problem. I just make sure my computer is off when i travel so nothing will move the heads of the HD.

I'm waiting for SSD's to be larger capacity(250gb+) and a bit cheaper before i get into them. They are the future of storage... but just not there yet in my mind. Though they are nearly indestructable, so that is a HUGE plus for them.

 

Interesting, I was under the impression that the HDD heads will move regardless of whether the laptop was on or off.

(Although some newer laptops move the HDD head somewhere it can't move once the laptop is turned off)

// Thanks for the fast reply ^^

 

That is the Landing Zone. Once the Head is parked in the Landing Zone, HDDs have a good shock resistance, around 1000G.

So, yes it will survive. If the HDD is not operating.

Older drives were a bit fragile. Newer drives aren't. Unless you drop the notebook or bang it into a wall, when the HDD is operating, than you make cause the head to crash into one of the platters.
HDDs when switched off, rarely die due to physical damage.

 

ah, so the studio 15 HDD has this landing zone?

If so, I would seriously consider buying the studio 15 laptop over a SSD laptop.

Heh, I don't think I'll be doing that often. Unless vista really pees me off

Thanks for the info

 

Its not the Studio 15, that has the landing zone, but its the HDD.
All HDDs have a landing zone to park the head/s when the HDD is off.

You can select a standard, low-level HDD for your notebook, and later upgrade it yourself to a HDD which either has a good shock resistance or a built-in accelerometer (FFS, etc).

 

Thanks for that Andy,

Hmm, I think I might go with that option, just did some quick research and the studio 15 looks pretty easy to upgrade. (warranty issues aside ^^)

 

Some extra info:

So there's a 50 g increase in shock tolerance when the laptop is off.
exactly how much force is 100 g, its seems pretty high!

---

Wouldn't this mean that SSDs are more or less redundant (at least until prices drop)?

 

Which HDD are you looking at ?
(I suck at physics and all, so I can't explain you regarding the Shock thing)

Good SSDs are lightning fast, compared to the fastest mobile HDD. And most HDD crashes occur when drives are operating, esp during full strokes (drop the notebook, shut the screen hard, bang against the wall, etc), whereas SSDs are durable, irrespective of the fact that they are operating or not operating.

Go for an HDD, get a good external HDD and backup data weekly/monthly.

 

That's the specifications for the 5400 rpm drives that you get in the studio 15.

Yeah, I think I'll go with what you said, regular laptop HDD + external HDD.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

 

on a side note:
http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

lol ^^