Is it totally OK to drop a HGST 2.5 inch hard drive from 6 inch (15 cm) height?

I've purchased a new HGST HTS721010A9E630 2.5 inch hard drive. The same day I dropped it inside my bag from approximately 6 inch (15 cm) height in vertical position and it landed on its side where the SATA connectors are. The thickness of the bag's bottom is about 1 mm. The bag was on the floor of a train. The floor wasn't covered with any linoleum or rug or carpet. The hard drive was inside a plastic sealed bag in which it comes from the factory. The plastic bag adjoins the hard drive closely. The environment was quite quiet and I heard a clearly audible impact sound.

I know that the weight of the drive is 115 g, (maximum) non-operating shock (half-sine wave) is 1000 G/1 ms. The drive wasn't operating at the time, of course, but just in case I'll mention that the (maximum) operating shock (half-sine wave) is 225 G/1 ms and 400 G/2 ms. The price of the drive is $56.

I want to know whether this shock is significant or negligible, because the drive has not been unpacked and I can easily replace or return it for free in the shop where I bought it, except that the shop is located in another city, so it would take several hours for me to travel there. I don't remember dropping hard drives ever before throughout my 20 years of experience with computers, I'm not good at physics and searching the web (for about 2 hours) doesn't work for me, that's why I need your help guys.

Something like a formula where I can put in the weight of the drive, the height of the fall and stopping distance (and then have the G as a result) would be very good, but also I want to know what amount of G is considered significant or negligible for such a hard drive and can such shock cause any after effects or decrease the drive's lifetime.

UPDATE:

I've remembered that I dropped Western Digital My Book from about 10 inch (25 cm) height onto linoleum. It's S.M.A.R.T. doesn't show whether there were registered shocks or not, but the drive is safe and sound. And by the way, most probably I killed my Western Digital WD3200BPVT by using it on the road. It's S.M.A.R.T. is showing "G-sense Error Rate" like this: current - 1, worst - 1, data - 69580. So I had both OK and bad experiences of shocking my HDDs before.

Gary Dekker

Posted 2017-11-25T00:16:00.040

Reputation: 63

1https://endevco.com/news/archivednews/2009/2009_02/tp321.pdf https://www.hgst.com/sites/default/files/resources/TS-7K1000-ds.pdf – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2017-11-25T00:23:03.720

@Ignacio, thank you. I've already visited endevco.com link, but I didn't understand anything. There is a table there - does it mean that the shock was 280 G if pulse width was 1 ms and the height was 6 inches? – Gary Dekker – 2017-11-25T00:54:08.650

why would you return it? it would be your fault you dropped it and broke it (if it was broken), not the store's or the manufacture's – Keith M – 2017-12-08T06:20:31.170

@KeithM, this is of course, not the question here, but I just want to have a reliable fully functioning hard drive and I don't have the resources to buy more than one hard drive. Also I believe that Western Digital would do the same if they were in my position - you can only follow the law - this is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps – Gary Dekker – 2017-12-08T07:57:23.917

Answers

It would be better if you had not dropped the drive, and there is no such thing as totally safe, but the drive should be able to handle that drop.

2.5 inch drives are typically used in laptops where there is an expectation that they will be subject to more abuse. Also, because it was powered down the heads would have been parked, so in a safe state. It is thus unlikely the drive suffered damage.

If the drive did suffer damage I would expect that plugging it in and testing it would find any problem, which would be covered under warranty.

davidgo

Posted 2017-11-25T00:16:00.040

Reputation: 49 152

But there are always some minimal shocks - that's a laptop after all - so there probably has to be a threshold for totally safe? It's not 1000 G, as well as I understand. So what could it be - 500 G, 100 G?.. – Gary Dekker – 2017-11-25T02:09:06.457

1@GaryDekker Vibrations and impacts on a hard drive are a little bit like heat on a CPU. You want to keep it as low as possible and any more than necessary could potentially shorten the life - but you’re likely never going to know for sure. – Appleoddity – 2017-11-25T02:35:39.877

@Appleoddity, but isn't it more like drinking small portions of poison or injecting vaccine to get immunity? – Gary Dekker – 2017-11-26T12:51:26.697

@GaryDecker - no, small drops on mechanical devices don't reduce future risk, only increase it. The immune system can adapt because it's living - but a scratched car will rust sooner - it won't grow new paintwork. – davidgo – 2018-04-21T00:46:13.690

When the head is locked (when its turned off) its relatively safe and can take a fair amount of shock. But since you dropped it on the SATA connector I'd be more worried about damage to the controller board which are not counted in the metrics you mentioned because it assumes its inside of computer. I would think a vertical drop is a lot safer for both the heads and platters as well.

jdwolf

Posted 2017-11-25T00:16:00.040

Reputation: 1 974

1Thank you! Yes, I read somewhere that a vertical drop is safer. – Gary Dekker – 2017-11-25T02:11:22.450