agedgrandad

Can anyone advise me about travelling with a Lacie back-up hard drive?
Should it be in hand baggage or in checked baggage?
Is there a risk of damage from airport and Homeland Security x-ray equipment?

Any guidance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

mellybrown

we carried ours in checked luggage - no issues

agedgrandad

Thanks - just wanted to be sure!

mellybrown

we wrapped it in a towel - just for added bump protection - you know how they love to throw suitcases around!!!

fatbrit

CBP have just announced their policy of having the right to inspect any storage devices for copyright infringements. So if it's full of no-nos, I'd mail it instead.

cranston

also worth considering

mediafire.com

free, unlimited on-line storage, file size limited to 100mb.

agedgrandad

Thanks. Somehow I can't bring myself to trust online back-up - just my prejudices, I expect.

Songbird

and how much fun is that going to be! I swear to god you COULDN'T make it up! This has to be one of THE most ludricious, unworkable regulations ever thought of!

runningbird

Just mentioned this to hubby and he said 'yup and they can turn on your laptop as well'

he had had an emailfrom work saying to cooperate or they can impound the laptop - his work lappy is encrypted so they are told to just do as they day

emailrob

personally I backed mine up twice - once on my laptop, once on an external drive in my luggage. If its important things like photos and files, I would consider more than one backup. Can you put important files on a dvd as well?

agedgrandad

Thanks for all replies
My real concern was as to whether anyone had found data being corrupted by x-ray examination of baggage - but since no-one has mentioned this, maybe I was being over-cautious. I will, however, cover myself by double back-ups in different cases.

snowbunny

And how on earth are their crack team of geniuses going to decide?

And could they please stay out of the IP rights business and do a better job at security?

snowbunny

X-rays aren't a worry, big magnets are -- but they have to be fairly strong. M bigger worry would be having the bag slammed into other bags, but if you cushioned your drive *very well* I wouldn't worry.

Soundman

X-ray should not affect your hard drive(s). - No problems with me and I have to carry alot of data with me when I travel.
If it's a case of taking one or two hard drives (drives only), I would take them with me rather than in checked-in luggage. There are more chances of the hard drives being damaged from harsh hadling (of luggage) than x-rays.

Just my 2p worth.

dbj1000

I want to add a BIG word of caution regarding LaCie, however.

I've now had two large (750GB standard external, 1TB NAS), top-of-the-range LaCie drives fail on me catastrophically. Each was less than two years old, had never been mistreated (or even moved, for that matter), and died suddenly and completely. Total loss of data, even with high-end recovery software.

My father, whose company used to use LaCie drives at every workstation as local expanded storage, had to retire them all when 75% of them failed within the first two years.

If you Google this problem, you'll find that it's not only common, but it usually happens when the drive is powered down after a long period of being powered on. So, if you're traveling with it, that's a time when it will be particularly at risk.

Given how cheap external drive storage has become, I would strongly recommend that you buy a second drive (I recommend the Western Digital MyBook range) and mirror your LaCie before you travel.