"SilentDrive" HDD Enclosure

Herodotus · Post by **Herodotus** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 3:32 pm

As part of a major silencing upgrade I bought a "SilentDrive" HDD enclosure from QuietPC.com. This consists of a plastic box with a removable lid, lined with foam backed by a a heavy rubber like compound. Inside this are two aluminium plates which actually project out through the side of the foam and the plastic box and then bend to form mounting brackets. This is presumably designed to conduct heat away from the drive. Well, all I can say is, it's not very silent! In fact, it's going right back where it came from on Monday. I put my Seagate 7200.7 SATA in this thing, and slid it into a drive bay, and powered up. Previously I'd had the drive sitting on a bit of foam in the bottom of the case, which wasn't bad, but I could certainly still hear it. It was also getting quite hot (50 degrees when idle). But now it was in the "Silent"Drive it was really very audible indeed, because the seek vibrations were being transmitted directly to the case.

Out of curiosity I pulled the thing out of the case to see what it would sound like when it wasn't transmitting vibrations. The results were more mixed. Significantly quieter than when in the case, and it certainly eliminated some of the higher-end sounds of the seek noise, but, if anything, the lower end was almost louder than when it was just sitting on the foam! A complete waste of time...

Does anyone know where I could get hold of the SmartDrive enclosure in the UK/somewhere with worldwide shipping at reasonable rates?

Lucian

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 10:59 pm

could you suspend it somehow?

Herodotus · Post by **Herodotus** » Sat Nov 29, 2003 1:27 am

Trip wrote:could you suspend it somehow?

The HDD or the enclosure? I don't intend to suspend the enclosure because I'm not paying GBP20 for something that doesn't actually make any difference! Suspending the HDD is certainly something I'm going to try, but that won't eliminate the non-vibrational noise... I may have to get creative

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Sat Nov 29, 2003 2:51 am

SebRad has had some success with the Fek-Pro

http://www.eltonfarm.evesham.net/Comput ... review.doc

I'm not sure how it handles vibrations.

There's also: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=8532

You may have easier access to one of the above, but I have no idea how it compares with the Smart Drive 2002. foam is said to work as does homemade suspensions. I'm curious what Mike C used in his suspension; I've been meaning to search around and find out.

When I suggested suspending i meant you could suspend the enclosure. Your 7200.7 couldn't be that loud, you must have a quiet system! From what I've read (and from my own cuda V) seagates do run hot, though 50 is a little high for me.

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Sat Nov 29, 2003 5:47 pm

Hi Herodotus, as Trip points out I have an FEK-Pro and it does reduce the HDDs idle noise. The seek noise is much reduced but I had it screwed directly to the chassis before so anything’s better than that! Having the FEK sitting on foam as against screwed to the case made little difference to the seek noise. Considering what the FEK costs (got the credit card bill yesterday) I could be disappointed as it's not magic! I think this silencing game is like everything else, the further you go the more expensive each step gets.
Here is a review including the FEK-Pro and the new Smart Drive 2002, which gets a favourable review. It’s available from silicon acoustics which is US based but does ship internationally. Didn't find anywhere closer. My FEK came from PCSilent German based with English version and UK shipping. They also have something that looks identical to the silentmaxx mentioned in this thread
Seb