It has become obvious to me that there are good ways and bad ways to pack equipment for shipping.

There are some basic goals that one needs to achieve in the packing.

1. Protect the equipment from excessive shock and vibration
2. Keep the equipment solidly centred within the outer box(es)
3. Keep the equipment safe from small object impacts
4. Prepare it to be dropped

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If you ever worry about a bit error happening to your files and not finding out about it, you should use MD5 checksums (or some similar method) to be able to verify that the file has not changed.

The general theory behind a checksum (or “Message Digest” = “MD”) is that it provides a unique 128-bit number for each and every file, based on its content. If one bit changes, the MD5 checksum (sometimes called “hash”) changes. The checksum is repeatable, does not permit discovery of two different files that produce the same checksum, and is non-reversible (i.e. you can’t create the content from the checksum). (more…)