Hard Drive Packaging

Ideal-typical hard drive packaging

Hard drives and other storage media are very sensitive to physical damage. Shocks and physical impacts can further complicate a data recovery. You find a short description for correct packaging below:

Step 1: Antistatic foil

Unintended electrostatic discharge may harm your storage medium. Antistatic foil eliminates the risk. We are aware that this specific packaging material is not easily available for everyone, especially not in a normal household.  But new hard drives, mainboards and graphic cards are always delivered wrapped in antistatic foil, so it is a good idea to keep it for later use.

Step 2: Shockproof packaging

Shock and other physical impacts may have negative effects on the fine mechanical components of a hard drive. A shockproof packaging is an important step on the way to a successful data rescue. The ideal packaging is a cardboard box lined with foam material on the inside. As an alternative you could use multiple layers of air cushion foil to protect your storage medium.

Step 3: Further packaging

We recommend to protect the hard drive with an additional layer of packaging. Furthermore, the outer packaging should be filled with cushioning filling material (e.g. "Flopack"). The padded hard drive should be fixed with the filling material. Watch out for unintentional movement when moving the package.

Step 4: Sender information

Your shipment should be labeled with your name and address. Adding your Attingo reference number (c.ATXXXXXX.XX) facilitates the allocation when we accept your package. If you have chosen our business or high priority service, you will receive a waybill note for overnight shipping via e-mail. 

Step 5: Shipment tracking

We recommend sending your package via a trackable package service. This makes it easier for you und us to check the current shipment status.

Special case: more than one strorage medium

If you want to send us several storage media (e.g. NAS or RAID systems) you should package every hard drive seperately in a shockproof packaging (as described above).

Examples for poorly packaged storage media

Anti-static protective film and padding is missing

Without this protection, the storage medium is subjected to undesired electrostatic charges and discharges. Similarly, the hard drive is exposed to shocks and impacts without protection due to the lack of the cushioning effect of padding materials.

No padding used

Due to the poor packaging, the storage medium is not fixated in place. This can lead to severe physical damages.

No padding of the gaps between hard drives

Each hard drive should be packaged individually with a lining of padding material. This will provide optimal protection against transport damages. Insufficient buffering will cause the hard drives to smash together and can result into severe physical damages.

Ideal-typical packaging of flash memory media:

• Solid state drives (SSDs)
• Memory cards
• USB sticks

In contrast to hard drives, these semiconductor memories don't contain any mechanical parts. Nevertheless SSDs, memory cards and USB sticks should also be packaged with care, an envelope is not enough. We recommend to send flash media the same way as described above. A small package with antistatic foil and a few cushioning elements sould be a sufficient protection against further transport damages.