Fred Langa answsers: “Do I risk damage to my hard disk if, when I travel, I keep it in my bag?”

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More down-to-earth advice from the LangaList legend.
[See the full post at: Fred Langa answsers: “Do I risk damage to my hard disk if, when I travel, I keep it in my bag?”]

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rc primak, lurks about, Elly, rontpxz81

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There appears to be no mention of carry-on and sending hard drives, flash drives, laptops, CD-ROM through the x-ray scanner.

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Great Lake Bunyip, rontpxz81

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When learning about x-ray I learned a seven hour flight results in exposing you to about the same radiation dosage as a chest x-ray. X-rays that examine bags use lower dose x-ray and back-scatter technology so, there’s probably more chance of the radiation exposure from the flight causing a problem.

Fortunately, computer memory read/write uses totally different technology.

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rc primak

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Fred makes a few good points as always in his piece. Simple deal is with Airlines or Travel with a Laptop in general Get an SSD! plain as that. HP on their Tech Support pages have a utility that parks the Heads on a normal HDD. In theory that should stop the platters on the Drive from getting gouged or scratched when the machine gets some rough handling, but if it really gets a hard time I would imagine that wouldn’t save your HDD. Always better to have it in the Cabin with you so as to control its environment and avoid the worst excess’s of Temps/Humidity/and Rugby playing Baggage Handlers.
If its going in the Cabin with you make sure the Battery works and is charged, as in these paranoid times its dubious if you’ll get past security with a obvious dead looking piece of electronics, and they’re not very amenable to finding a power outlet at Security.
Unfortunately one issue with Fred’s advice, well in my experience anyway, yes wrapping in the centre of your bag with clothes is good but not fool proof alas. In a joint effort between Garuda, Cathay Pacific and Air Canada they managed to destroy a laptop screen between them and none of them were very forthcoming about recompense. Although the Laptop lives on via an external Monitor As an addition for shipping Laptops/Desktops the original packaging in many cases normally suffices with any space in the original Box being stuffed with Bubble wrap/Popcorn or foam.
Best advice keep it with you if the enviroment’s good enough for you it’ll be good enough for your travelling companion and you can even get on with some work done while crammed in those infernal Aluminium Tubes at 40,000 ft so long as you can type etc in the space of a postage stamp without elbowing your neighbour in Cattle Class.

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rc primak, flackcatcher

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When I was in high school I had a netbook that I’d slip into a laptop case and slip into my backpack for the five minute walk to and from home. Nowadays when commuting downtown for class I slip my laptop into a special laptop bag that is slung over my neck and shoulders, and my commute is not a five minute walk but two hours by bus and subway. I’ve always done my best to take care of both computers (they are both HDD laptops) but I’m always of course looking for anything that I might be doing that might be damaging those precious hard drives.

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One of the first things I done with my netbook, whilst still under warranty (circa 2010), was jam an SSD in it and max-out the RAM and it’s still working fine today as a small road warrior with a Hybrid Linux OS. Netbooks still have lots of potential use and great battery life IMHO
This thing get chucked in the car etc..it’s like a mini-toughbook

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rc primak, BobbyB

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I’ve considered getting a Chromebook. There’s a good reason why Chromebooks are so loved in schools–they’re practically indestructible, designed for kids dropping them and adults picking them up by their screens. HDDs don’t like that.

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I have had a hard drive die on me even on a short hop from Joburg to Cape Town even though my laptop was with me in the cabin. I think it was because of a hard landing: mine was the only bag in that compartment (very early and nearly empty flight), and i could hear it slide from one end to the other as the pilots braked hard after bouncing. Dell replaced the drive within 24 hours, fortunately. I didn’t even care that they kept the old one (i use BitLocker with 256-bit encryption and TPM 2.0).

But for the trip i’m about to take tonight i listened to another recent post from Woody on this forum about the best PC to get — a Chromebook. (I realize there was a learned rebuttal to that pointed answer.) It set me back $349, has a large screen (so i can RemotePC to my machines back in New York and not change my 1920×1080  default view), and a cheap but serviceable eMMC drive. (Yeah, i know: below SSD standard.) I’ve been testing it for a few days, accessing everything from Dropbox to my Office 365 account to all the Google Suite tools my consulting comrades use. If anything, it has demonstrated to me just how much i have already migrated to cloud computing, and i’m only being stubborn about using, for example, Microsoft applications from the Windows 10 hard drive.

Thank you, Woody, for that.

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rc primak, lurks about, flackcatcher, BobbyB

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Since we’re talking about alternatives to hard drive centered travel companions, let me introduce you to my current companion. This whole setup with backup drives and accessories is in the $500.00-600.00 range (US dollars) as of a year ago, maybe cheaper now.

ASUS flipc302 Chromebook, based on Intel Core-i3 motherboard. All Intel is the key here.

Chrome OS with SeaBIOS (MrChromebox) replacement firmware, just updated in Sept. 2018 with their latest version. CHRX install of Fedora-Xfce Linux to make the closest you can do on a Chromebook to a dual-boot. So far, this means no mechanical hard drive at all.

Linux does not have drivers presently for the internal SD Card Reader or the internal sound (speakers or headphones/line out). Bought a $40.00 mini-DAC for inline conversion of digital sound output for analog headphones (cheap or expensive, doubles as noise canceling in airline cabins). Add a USB-C/USB-A (two-ended) SD card reader. Both just for Linux — all hardware works just fine under Chrome OS. And a dock from ASUS ($110.00, maybe cheaper now).

While in a plane cabin, use Chrome OS if Internet is provided; if not, switch over to Linux. No mouse needed, and keyboard mapped with Linux tools to match Fedora requirements. Currently upgraded to Fedora 29 with Linux kernel 4.19.8. (I don’t worry about IBM now owning RedHat; Fedora is governed by the GNU-PL open-source license framework. So is the GNU-Linux kernel.)

Backup and recovery options are Fedora Live With Persistence, Fedora Live installation media and Clonezilla Live (any version). gParted Live would be a nice addition. And a backup copy of the latest Clonezilla archive from Fedora 29. All on USB-A flash drives. Also, a recent Chrome OS Rescue USB flash drive. Sync the Chromebook Account once, then unsync and erase all personal data and tracking possible at Google and in their Chrome Browser (also, clear data from the Linux side in that Chrome Browser).

All fits in less than half a carry-on bag. Chrome OS configures and updates itself. Android Apps run on this Chromebook. All can be fired up for security and demoed in a few minutes. Very fast startup. Pure eMMC, SD Cards and Flash Drives. Cloud backup for Chrome OS data. Android phone can connect to share  anything on the phone, and Android uses Cloud Backup. Local Android data backup optional. I use Google Drive to sync data across devices and OSes.

My “home PC” is an Intel NUC, also all solid-state, except for backup drives. The whole NUC except for the keyboard, mouse and monitor fits inside a 4x4x5 inch box. I have a 10 inch powered HDMI mini-monitor which can be used with the NUC. Except for not being battery powered, this too can travel in a bag.

So travel can be done on minimal hardware in terms of space, vibration and XRay vulnerabilities. But you do have to be clever about configuring everything.

BTW, the Chromebook as configured must always remain in Developer Mode, which does disable OS Verification, an important Chrome OS security measure.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”  (We miss you, Stan Lee!)

 

I used to use an ASUS t100ta 2-in-1 with a decent keyboard-dock. Also pure eMMC. And similar backup and recovery media with Cloud Storage for syncing across devices. But this was Windows 10 32-bits. I don’t think 32-bits Windows Win32 applications will be supported forever, so I built the NUC and modded the Chromebook. Future-proofing, don’t you know!

-- rc primak

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