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Most noisiest component = hard drive...

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:22 am
by Artonox
Ok, before i begin, just wanted to say a HUGE thanks to this website as a whole. Although I don't post much, I lurk around here regularly, reading up on the latest articles.

My latest rig is mostly made up of SPRC reviewed components, which I deem is best for the quieting aspect.
However, it has come to a point where the loudest components in my rig are my 2 WD green hard drives.

Its housed in a FT02 case, and they used to transmit vibration noise (strange because it deems the plastic rubber things that hold the drives near useless) to the case. Hence I have evolved to a string suspension setup. That seemed to do the trick.

This leaves the seek noise of the harddrives. Is the only option now to change to ssd? or are there cheap silencers out there?

Re: Most noisiest component = hard drive...

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 6:45 am
by chienpourri
Honestly? I would definitly upgrade to SSD, no questions asked.

First, you'll get blazing speed, no latency while accessing data, and most of all no noise. The prices are plummeting down very fast, I've seen 120G Agility 3 drives for 55$ after MIR last weekend. Average price for 120G is between 60-110 depending on drive, series, etc...

I paid 110$ for a measly 30G drive 3 years ago and I've never regretted it... and bought more drives over time. Now all my PC's / laptops have SSD's.

As for your green drives, I would buy a NAS and put them in there. You can often find the DNS-320 for less than 100$. It's easy to put the NAS in a closet where the noise won't bother you, and you get additionnal perks such as access from every machine in your home, DLNA + iTunes server, etc...

Re: Most noisiest component = hard drive...

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 7:00 am
by kuzzia
I believe Scythe has some enclosures that need to be in the 5,25" inch drives. These should reduce the airborne noise but they may transmit the vibration over to the case. But the WD Green drives are probably the most quiet drives, so the airborne noise shouldn't be noticeable. Perhaps your drives have become noisy because they are aging.

Re: Most noisiest component = hard drive...

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 7:33 am
by Artonox
chienpourri wrote:Honestly? I would definitly upgrade to SSD, no questions asked.

First, you'll get blazing speed, no latency while accessing data, and most of all no noise. The prices are plummeting down very fast, I've seen 120G Agility 3 drives for 55$ after MIR last weekend. Average price for 120G is between 60-110 depending on drive, series, etc...

I paid 110$ for a measly 30G drive 3 years ago and I've never regretted it... and bought more drives over time. Now all my PC's / laptops have SSD's.

As for your green drives, I would buy a NAS and put them in there. You can often find the DNS-320 for less than 100$. It's easy to put the NAS in a closet where the noise won't bother you, and you get additionnal perks such as access from every machine in your home, DLNA + iTunes server, etc...
Thanks, it does seem my next step is to go ssd entirely. Hopefully it won't be too long before i get the cash to sort that out.
kuzzia wrote:I believe Scythe has some enclosures that need to be in the 5,25" inch drives. These should reduce the airborne noise but they may transmit the vibration over to the case. But the WD Green drives are probably the most quiet drives, so the airborne noise shouldn't be noticeable. Perhaps your drives have become noisy because they are aging.
My older WD green drive is at least 4 years old and it does seem to do some more "mechanical noise" (if you get what I mean) than the newer one. However, it is still very acceptable and seemingly unnoticeable at the 1m range.