Solved Flat memory media that can be postal mailed as a letter


Haydon

Haydon

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In days past, I put a CD/DVD in a paper pocket and postal mailed it without any padding as a letter, there were never any mishaps.

What's available today?
 

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SD Cards, and their derivatives are quite robust against physical damage, although they can be affected by some kinds of electronic / Magnetic devices. specialist envelopes and labels are available to be sure.

The simplest method for digital data is of course e-Mail or other digital transfer, if this is an option
 

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Flash memory can get corrupted if X-ray'ed. Check if your postal carrier, or the recipient does any security screening
 

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I agree with the suggestion to use SD cards or MicroSD cards.
Mine have survived numerous airport etc security scans.

If you are going to ask anybody about x-raying packages I urge you to ask them what precautions you would need to take for SD cards or MicroSD cards.
If you ask if they do any security scanning instead then you are liable to sound suspicious.


Best of luck,
Denis
 

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barman58 said:
SD Cards, and their derivatives are quite robust against physical damage, although they can be affected by some kinds of electronic / Magnetic devices. specialist envelopes and labels are available to be sure.

The simplest method for digital data is of course e-Mail or other digital transfer, if this is an option
Click to expand...

The potential issue I see with that is that not everyone may have an SD card reader. (I have several. I also have an external optical drive.)

I've seen USB flash drives that have no housings, but not at retail. They're quite thin, but they don't look very robust.

A recipient might need to be told that one can be plugged into a regular USB A slot.
 

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With the explosion in the availability of the mobile phone in recent years I would be fairly confident that most would understand how to access data from an SD and especially a MicroSD card - possibly more than would understand the CD or DVD.

I myself still retain a portable blu Ray writer that also reads and writes CD & DVD media of various sizes and types, though I rarely use it these days
 

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So, taping a MicroSD card on the inside of a folded cover letter is OK, then?
 

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Haydon said:
So, taping a MicroSD card on the inside of a folded cover letter is OK, then?
Click to expand...
No reason why not but do consider how to avoid getting the tape's glue on the card's contacts.

Denis
 

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Try3 said:
No reason why not but do consider how to avoid getting the tape's glue on the card's contacts.

Denis
Click to expand...
I hope that putting the contact side of the card on the cover letter surface is sufficient. The card is 1 mm thick so that the tape glue may be 1 mm out from the edge of the card.

It is only one of (for now) worth a try. Thanks to all who contributed (y) I will mark this thread 'Solved' :-)
 

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Haydon said:
I hope that putting the contact side of the card on the cover letter surface is sufficient. The card is 1 mm thick so that the tape glue may be 1 mm out from the edge of the card.

It is only one of (for now) worth a try. Thanks to all who contributed (y) I will mark this thread 'Solved' :-)
Click to expand...



Personally I would wrap the SD card in regular paper (one thickness), then tape that to a piece of poster cardboard (1mm thick), then stick all that in an envelope. Test it first with a cheap SD card. If that arrives intact... then you'll know.
 

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Ghot said:
Personally I would wrap the SD card in regular paper (one thickness), then tape that to a piece of poster cardboard (1mm thick), then stick all that in an envelope. Test it first with a cheap SD card. If that arrives intact... then you'll know.
Click to expand...
I am hoping that the folded cover letter in a standard #10 envelope provides sufficient protection. It's 3 paper layers on one side of the card and (2 paper + 1 tape) layers on the other side. We'll see.

Edit: Come to think of it, credit cards (that have electronics built-in) are postal mailed not better protected than that.
 
Last edited:

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