I have a motorcycle tank bag that adheres the the gas tank using strong magnets. As such, these magnets are in close proximity to anything in the bag... my Acer Aspire One included. I bought the AAO specifically to carry around with me on my motorcycle, and the SSD not being magnetic like a HDD was a factor. Any time I am not using it, it stays in the magnetic tank bag all day every day. That said, I am absolutely FED UP with the performance of it with the integrated SSD and would love to switch to a HDD if you guys think that it would be fine near the magnets. There are seven 1" magnets sealed in the bottom of the bag and in the two flaps that fold up against the bottom (when detached from the bike). I don't know how to measure their strength, but I can describe it. It's a tiny little bag, but I once carried a gallon of milk, a two liter of soda, two one liters of soda, and a tightly smooshed bag of chips, but and it all held (I'm amazed that it all fit in it... like playing Tetris). I was only going a block away and I doubt I would've attempted a farther distance with a similar load unless I attached the optional strap that I never use but, regardless, those are still some nicely strong magnets. Many years ago, I read that the magnetic field of the Earth itself makes most HDDs made in the last 10 years begin to fail in 5-8 years (head tracking information stored BETWEEN cylinders/sectors begins to fade... it doesn't get refreshed with a format or read/write cycle and you can't LLF a modern drive). That concerns me because the Earth's magnetic field is pretty weak! Perhaps it doesn't wipe your data but simply accelerates the MTBF (mean-time before failure)? That said, these drives seem pretty cheap and, if it can generally survive all-day every-day proximity to the magnets even at the expense of MTBF, I may not have a problem replacing them every so often as long as I make regular backups.
