Hard Drive whine vs. read/write noise

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:24 pm

Are there different techniques for reducing the noise of overall hard drive spin noise/whine vs. the crunching sound you get when read/write operations are going on?

I find myself with 2 hard drives with opposite issues.

200 Gig Seagate - loud read/write noises
120 Gig WD - loud overall whine

The Instigator · Post by **The Instigator** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:55 pm

For seek noise, suspending the drive will come close to eliminating the crunching. Whine at idle is really unfixable other than enclosing the drive in a product like the smartdrive. For the same price as an enclosure, you could get a quiet drive like a samsung spinpoint which is probably a better way to go.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:57 pm

#1) read silent storage stickies.

#2) suspend for read/seek

#3) enclose or better still ditch

for whine

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:24 pm

The high pitch of the WD is quite easy to lower by constructing an enclosure out of some appropriate material, however, the noise will not be eliminated, you will still be able to hear it but at least that nerve-racking screech can be dampened. Works as an temporary solution.

Orbit · Post by **Orbit** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 7:51 pm

I recently suspended 3 of my drives (Seagate Baracuda IV, Seagate 7200.7 and WD 120gig).

Firstly I had the WD 120gig and the 7200.7 in the lower cage suspended, and the Baracuda IV in the upper cage. I think the high pitch whine was all but GONE. I didnt really notice its absence until I redid the suspension, putting all 3 in the lower cage... and then sure enough its whining again.

I believe MikeC once said that suspending will also reduce some of the perceived noise of high frequency whine... so its better than nothing.

Qwertyiopisme · Post by **Qwertyiopisme** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:00 am

Orbit wrote:...I believe MikeC once said that suspending will also reduce some of the perceived noise of high frequency whine... so its better than nothing.

That is true as when hardmounted the whine will transfer to the case (seek noise is transferred much better though).

Krispy · Post by **Krispy** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:42 pm

I recently suspended a pair of WD's & the whine improvement was considerable. Almost inaudible now, I am absolutely delighted!.
It is well worth persevering.

postul8or · Post by **postul8or** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:56 am

Thanks for the replies. My main challenge now is to find a supplier nearby for the elastic masterial. I agree with your ideas that discontinuing the use of the drive is smarter, but I just feel stupid having a 120 Gb sitting on a shelf somewhere.

The only place I can put the hard drive is in a CD bay where the air movement is suspect. I think my approach will be to back up that drive as best I can. If it overheats and fails sooner at least I can draw one positive from it.

Qwertyiopisme · Post by **Qwertyiopisme** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 1:12 pm

postul8or wrote:Thanks for the replies. My main challenge now is to find a supplier nearby for the elastic masterial. I agree with your ideas that discontinuing the use of the drive is smarter, but I just feel stupid having a 120 Gb sitting on a shelf somewhere.

The only place I can put the hard drive is in a CD bay where the air movement is suspect. I think my approach will be to back up that drive as best I can. If it overheats and fails sooner at least I can draw one positive from it.

Why not keep it as a backup drive, in the eventual case that you main system dies? (It's also got quite a forcefull way of not having it used uneededly, namely the noise

)

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:16 am

Now, if only the following problems were solved:

- most if not all enclosures increase modern high capacity drives' temperatures beyond safe (imho) limits, unless one uses additional fans on them

- all encolusers commercially available require 5.25" slots. I'm outta those and I already have a maxi tower. I absolutely need to put the drives into a 3.5" drive cage (with rubber mounts). There is no enclosure to kill whine in this situation, at least not that I know of.

The elusive goal is:

- a 3,5" cage fitting enclosure (drive sideways) that kills idle whine, but does not raise temps and does not require additional forced cooling.

Is it doable?

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:56 am

postul8or wrote:Thanks for the replies. My main challenge now is to find a supplier nearby for the elastic masterial.

How about a haberdashery?

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to use that word

)

As for halcyon's comments, I think our best hope is a 2.5" drive enclosure that will fit a 3.5" slot - allowing us to either completely silence a laptop drive, or make acceptable the noise of a 2.5" enterprise drive like the Savvio.

The Instigator · Post by **The Instigator** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:33 am

I have both of my drives mounted in vantec heatpipe coolers and stacked on top of each other using some wide popsicle sticks to separate them. Then I took the assembled unit and set it on a block of foam in the back of the case by the PCI slots. I took out a couple of slot covers from the case to ensure some airflow. Its by far the quietest my system has ever been and the raptor never goes above 35C. The Samsung is usually in the high 20s. The only noise from my case is my hard drives anyway so making them quieter is a big deal. This setup wont work if you have PCI cards in there of course, but my motherboard allows to get away without any extra cards.

I will post some pics later in case my explanation wasnt clear enough.