In August we de-installed servers and storage for a US IT company at Equinix LD5 in Slough and prepared the servers for air freight to the United States. The equipment left the data centre on three pallets and was handed to the air freight agent at Heathrow the same day.

What came out

Rack servers and two Seagate 4U storage enclosures, each fully loaded with drives. A populated enclosure is a two-person lift at the very least.

Preparing servers for air freight

Servers for air freight have to be packed for the aircraft and the handling either side of it, not just the road. Everything was de-racked, packed and built onto pallets, then shrink-wrapped and labelled for the airline.

Each pallet is weighed and measured before it goes, because air freight is charged on whichever is greater, the actual weight or the volume. A tightly built pallet costs less to fly than a loose one.

The paperwork that decides the trip

The hard part of sending servers to the USA is rarely the flight. Before anything leaves, someone has to be the importer of record, the declared value has to reflect what the equipment is worth today rather than what it cost, and the duty at the US end has to be understood. Get those settled before the kit is packed, not once it is sitting at the airport.

Sending equipment overseas?

Read more about our cross-border relocation service and moves to and from the USA, or get in touch.