I recently purchased an audio unit for my car that has a rear USB input. For anyone interested, it is the Alpine iDA-X300.

I have a 100Gb hard drive connected to this unit, loaded with about 10,000 MP3's.

I'm wondering what the best mounting position would be for the USB drive, to prevent physical damage from the constant jolts of hitting potholes, speed bumps, etc. I'm thinking in terms of heads hitting the platter, etc.

Thoughts...?

3.5" or 2.5"? What kind of case?

Down at the cheap end of things, a foam can cozy, wrapped in a towel in the glove compartment? Hmm, that might not work so well as foam is a heat insulator, nevermind.

-brendan

One of these, but an older version.

I would say to mount it vertically. It is best to keep the heads from hitting the disc. You will get more bouncing up and down than side to side.

That's what I was thinking as well.

Since that is bus powered I assume it is 2.5" (if it says on the linked site I missed it.)
FWIW I have a generic 20GB 2.5" HDD which has been inside its 1/2" thick foam pocket inside my Toughbook for going on six years of daily vehicle usage (July 2002) and have not suffered any problems. Said vehicle gets driven off-road (though I can't think of when it has been off-road while the drive was spinning).

EDIT: forgot to mention - obviously the drive in question is mounted horizontally.

What about when the car brakes? Even when done somewhat gently, the human *body* feels the deceleration and tilts forward...

That is still not the direction that would impact the heads flying over the disc.

And, I would hate to drive with you if you hit the brakes more than there are bumps in the road :-)