dragosmp

First of all, this is not my invention. I have seen a while ago something similar on www.silentpcreview.com, but the materials and the "how to" are from my personal experience.

The fact it's an 1$ method should not make anyone think it's a cheapo way to improve something, it is the only way to do it. You can try rubber mounts and plastic screws, but they give unsatisfactory results in my book. This is cheaper and better with the following disadvantage: the HDD is suspended in mid-air, so there is a high risk of flapping it against the case if you move the rig a lot, so it's a no-go for lan-boxes.

What you gain with this method is a dead quiet HDD, no matter what brand/speed it is. When I say quiet I mean it will erase especially those annoying rattle/chainsaw noise when it's searching for something that is very noticeable on Seagate HDDs and WD Raptor. This was tested on my RAID-0 Seagate 7200.10 matrix, a friend's Raptor X and my server's Fujitsu 5400rpm 6.4GB.

They say a picture's worth more than a thousand words, so here's the basic:




What you need:

- the HDD (blue) and a free 5.25" bay (black)
- some 20cm (14inch) per HDD of rubber or elastic bands - 1$/meter from any general store
- optionally you'd need a fan

How to do it:

- clear the 5.25" bay of anything it may have inside
- the walls of the 5.25" bays usually have 2 holes for each side where you can insert the elastic bands; start from one side (from outside-in), traverse the 5.25" bay, get it out thru a hole on the other side and then get it back thru different holes that are just above/below the ones you used the first time.
- tie a knot and you have one of the supports
- make a second support
- put the HDD in and enjoy the silence

Optional fan:

WHY a fan? HDDs produce a lot of heat (especially if you're having Raptors or Seagates). The heat usually transfers to the case by the means of direct contact between the HDD and the case when pressed in a 3.5" bay. Applying this method to silence the HDD removes this contact and I noticed the temp rising from 44°C to 55°C, quite dangerous. This is maybe a worse case scenario because I have an awfully crowded case and two Seagates in Raid-0 which are by no means "cool". The Raptor was even worse, its temp rose above 60°C without the fan (from 54°C before the mod). The Fujitsu was as cool as always, its 5400rpm allowing it to stay cool - so no fan needed.

A 80mm fan on 5V (low speed inaudible) has reduced the temp by 12-15°C. In my case it was a necessity, I don't even dream on letting my disks at over 50°C. It's likely that any modern HDD (maybe except Samsung) needs this fan if you're to do the mod.

That's it, enjoy.

*EDIT There are some very good pictures on ericeod's post if you'd like to scroll down to no18.

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Nice guide:
How to: Silence any HDD with 1$

Pwnography

Lol theres nothing u cant solve with a couple of laggy bands is there XD XD XD this made me laugh nice thread

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dragosmp

In this case it works, I was skeptic myself; still the noise made by 2 seeking HDDs is very unpleasant and this is a way to silence them.

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Nice guide:
How to: Silence any HDD with 1$

noname

nice dude , thanks.

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dragosmp

If you have any questions or I'll try to improve the thread.

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Nice guide:
How to: Silence any HDD with 1$

Pwnography

Yeah add a section called : How to build a Video card with laggy bands. Now that id want to see

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dragosmp

It's in the mail, stick around

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My log:
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Nice guide:
How to: Silence any HDD with 1$

SZayat

neat-o

+

Could you please post a real world picture? And which application do you use to monitor the HDD temperature?

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dragosmp

I'll post the pictures tonight when I get home (here's 9AM). I use Speedfan to monitor the temps while not in RAID (for the Raptor and Fujitsu tests) and my RAID HDDs with a normal temperature probe sticked to the big hot chip on the PCBs of the disks.

After 2 days of silence I'm thinking it's worth the 3 hours spent to make this work.

__________________
My log:
100W Mini server build log

Nice guide:
How to: Silence any HDD with 1$

mastertrixter

i just did this and it was really easy. only thing i did different was run the bands over and under then tied off on the outside of each screw hole. old 120 hitachi IDE is dead silent now and actually runs about 4c cooler than it did before. thank you very much