Miphee wrote on 2020-08-16, 05:18:
This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap.
I don't get people. A huge roll of bubble wrap is like $15 and using 10-20-30 layers of that prevents nearly every damage.
I disagree, too much soft padding (i.e. bubble wrap) can be bad, because then whatever is packed inside can move and bang around in the package, and in the case of heavy items screwed into brittle plastic break them loose.
the best practice when packing is to pack items so that they CAN NOT move, bubble wrap is not ideal for that, especially if you have multiple layers, medium hard foam is best for that, as it will cushion an impact and prevent whatever is inside from moving around too much.
wrapping the case tightly in bubble wrap is a good idea so nothing can shear anything off or scratch a surface, but the rest of the packing material should better be something harder imo.
in case of the apple not even that might have saved it though, as the drives inside the case still can break loose on a hard enough impact, so in that case filling up the case itself would be ideal so nothing IN the case can move.
happens to me regularly that heatsinks come off during shipping because they are not screwed in... I've even had cards that were actually screwed in come loose though... so stuffing the case itself tightly with bubble wrap might be a good idea (but antistatic one please ^^)
for example the broken 8" floppy I got recently was wrapped in a decent amount of bubblewrap, and the package itself wasn't really damaged either, but the drive clearly had a hard impact and got smashed "into itself"... would the drive have been wrapped tightly and then hard foam around it, nothing could have moved on the drive itself and it would have likely been intact in my opinion.
so in short... bubblewrap is surface protection, not impact protection.