how does one, move approx 8Tb of data to a different country?
i’m moving from one country to another, and my current data is on an HDD, not very safe on planes luggage where they throw you bags. would you back up to a cloud and buy a new HDD once you get to the other country? if so, what service?
I’ll only have to do it once, from UK to the US, does backblaze still ship HDDs? can i keep their HDD?
Just use a couple SSDs if you can afford them …
and/or carry youd HDD in your hand baggage …
i’m just scared if anything happens to my luggage, i would have a permanent loss of data, i guess i should have specified that i’m looking a solution that require me transporting the data myself, because i don’t know the best procedures for it
really, one hd in your backpack, one hd in your luggage packed as you were shipping it (static bag,foam,tight cardboard box) and you will be good, unless the plane crashes and/or they rob you when you arrive, but unless you’re moving to Venezuela that shouldn’t be an option.
If you’re worried about something happening to all your luggage and yourself, and if you have enough bandwith were you live and were you land then any cloud backup service will be fine …
If you pack it tightly with like towels and stuff it should be fine. If youre that worried there’s always cloud storage…
Keep a 3rd / 4th copy. Have a friend / family member keep the 3rd copy and then ship the 4th copy via mail that is very well packaged up!
If needed you can always have the friend upload the data bit by bit at a later time if needed.
If you do decide to use cloud storage as cakeisamadeupdrug has suggested … encrypt it before uploading it!
Just a thought!
Before encrypting it, compress the data so it takes less storage space. You can get 1TB NVMe drives for about €85-100 (approx. US$100-120), no idea what UK market prices are. I recall a tool that could split data across multiple devices (can’t recall the name), split the encrypted data across several NVMe drives. These are small and reliable and fit in your hand luggage with sensible protection (like: keep it in the box it came in). Put the HDD in your normal luggage, obviously well protected.
I would put the data on a couple HDD’s in my hand luggage.
Put them out on the X-ray scanner belt loose, like your laptop, and after security, pack them in a jumper or so for the flight. In a spare anti static bag so nuffin rubs/scratches the PCB
I personally have a couple empty USB drive cases I would put them in, but doubt it would be worth buying just to transport.
You could also just buy a USB HDD to carry with, and ship whatever is left overnight (well packed)
oh, destination is USA. maybe send several drives via FedEX +DHL + UPS to an acquaintance / receiving company the other end, and see if any get there in one piece… /S
(jokes. Also, didn’t realise OP was the uniorn person, and apologise for dragging an additional thread into the doldrums.)
I wouldn’t adivse you to bring HDDs on a plane for one simple reason: I think border patrol might ask you to hand over the drive to make sure you’re not carrying any questionable file. I don’t know the odds of that happening but if they want to search and you have that amount of data you ain’t getting into the country for a couple days.
So, my suggestion, is to use some online backup tool like Glacier and start moving data now to reduce the initial cost. Than, once you’re there, start slowling pulling data off of the cloud. They have a cost calculator.
If you get M.2 ones they could more easly fly under the radar (no pun intended) compared to a chonky 3.5" HDD. Sabrent makes an 8TB QLC M.2 SSD that would work perfectly, but it’s really expensive.
Last thing I can think of is moving data with the redundancy functionality new pre-built NAS come with. But that would mean having someone in the US with an high speed internet connection to tansfer data to. Don’t know how feasable that would be for you.
I have been travelling across all major continents for the last 20 years, I’m Italian, and pre covid used to travel to the US at least 4 times a year for tech conferences.
Was I ever questioned by border patrol about why I would be coming so often to the US? Yes, did they ever search my mess of backpack almost always including multiple laptops , external drives, usb keys and whatnot?
Not.Ever.Once.
And the US border patrol is by far the most thorough of them all.
So, as long as you have a valid reason to be entering a country, have proper paperwork and are not carrying anything illegal (e.g., your HD is full of your 10 years of photos and vids, personal projects, code and VMs) then just chuck it in the backpack.
If your HD is full of pirated music/video then … man … why do you even ask?
That’s absolutely of great relief for our fellow forum member. I used the conditional exactly because I’ve never had my personal files searched for anywhere I went. But I also know how strict border patrol is in the US.
I had my camera bag serched though. I got asked to take apart my camera to inspect it, but not in an aggressive manner.
I’m sure that’s absolutely the case.
That actually happened to me as well, I was entering China, and had a Nikon F5 50th Anniversary Model … they made me turn it on and operate the lens and af motor, and operate the shutter … that thing was a tank: all aluminum body with some titanium parts (like the viewfinder) …
i’ve also had that once, last time i went to LA, they me open my bag, and a camera fell out, and it broke… i got it claimed under travel insurance luckily, but lifetime photos are irreplaceable… that kinda “scarred” me into never bringing anything too important over a border…
So, my suggestion, is to use some online backup tool like Glacier and start moving data now to reduce the initial cost. Than, once you’re there, start slowling pulling data off of the cloud. They have a cost calculator.
i don’t have the boxes that i bought my NVME SSDs from anymore, so maybe i’ll buy a anti static bag, but also i’ll look into glacier. i was all thinking about dropbox etc… but maybe i’ll encrypt them and upload them to AWS instead, much less hassle!
thanks!!
yeah… i totally forgot that i had something on the internet that i had to check…
Absolutely. Get even more why you asked if there’s a safe way to do it or not.
Sure, that would do the trick. If you have the means, you could even think about printing an M.2 holder or something like that.
If they’re gonna travel in the carry on with you I don’t think it’s necessary to get some heavy duty protection for them.
They charge per GB of storage and to push/pull data on/off of it. So it’s pretty flexible and doesn’t lock you into a specific tier. I don’t think there’s even a tier for 8TB of storage for consumer solutions like Dropbox, GDrive, One Drive and so on.
Sure, that will work really well too.
You got options for sure. Choose the one that fits your needs and wallet the best.