Storing hard drives

[ksmith]

So last night I pulled some hard drives out of some old PCs--what's the best way to store them?

I didn't try to power up the PCs, and I have no idea how viable the drives are. I am not going to try to power up the PCs, which are now boxed up in the bed of my truck.

One of the drives is dusty--should I use canned air to clean it?

Comments

[berry-k.livejournal.com]

Actually I disagree. Asumming that Kris WANTS to preserve the drives for future data extraction I'd recommend putting them into a plastic anti-static bag, wrapping in a layer of bubble wrap and storing in a cool dry place.

Compressed air in a can should be pretty safe.

I'd also recommend pulling the data off sooner rather than later; I have some old drives in my garage I can no longer buy controllers for, so they're useless unless I get lucky on ebay.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I meant regular plastic bags, like most folks have in the kitchen. I didn't have any anti-static bags handy, so I used the aforementioned cloth bags. They're not intended for long-term storage, just as a place to keep them dust and cat-hair free until I can pull the data off this weekend.

[berry-k.livejournal.com]

OK, that sounds sensible then.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I have anti-static bags that are large enough. I have cloth bags.