HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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george_r4
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Post by george_r4 » Thu May 03, 2007 1:46 am

Image
It's not pretty, but it's silent 8)

CmdC
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Post by CmdC » Sun May 06, 2007 1:42 pm

Is it safe to run suspended harddrives?

sareiodata
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Post by sareiodata » Sun May 06, 2007 3:35 pm

Quite safe...as long as you use strong rubber bands. Also you will need just a little air flow around the HDD to prevent overheating.(a 80mm fan @5V will do the trick) Nothing more...

miahallen
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My first attempt to suspend HDDs

Post by miahallen » Mon May 07, 2007 3:03 am

The first three pictures are of a modded Silverstone CFP51. Normally it will hold up to four HDDs stacked, instead I'm using it to hold up to three side by side. It's amazing how much quieter it is now :shock:
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The last image shows my HTPC, pretty simple suspension for a single drive, if you look closely, you can see the elastic bands are being held onto the HDD by four cable tie-downs. They have a sticky side that ended up working perfectly in this situation. BTW- the case is a Silverstone LC17. I'm about to swap the three 120mm case fans for three Yate Loons, then it will be my very quiet HTPC.
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CmdC
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Post by CmdC » Mon May 07, 2007 3:54 am

Great work miahallen! But please take out all those metal barbs (hope
this is the correct tech name for it) anyway those sharp metal ends leaved
after you make a holl in metal... if you don't do it you end up couting a finger
or something else when changing harddrives or doing any other work in that
space :cry: some days ago i have done a big hole in my finger because of
those metal barbs :cry: now my eyes are hopen. Sorry for the bad english.

Faster_Madman
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Post by Faster_Madman » Tue May 08, 2007 4:02 pm

Here's what i did with an Antec SLK3000.
The drive cage is resting on some rubbery foam and is held in place with the same rubbery foam, or foamy rubber and the drives are mounted in the drive cage in the normal manner with screws and rubber grommets.

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Excuse me for the bad picture quality which is a result of a bad cellphone camera, shaky hands and nighttime photography without any good lightsource.

Z24
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Post by Z24 » Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:56 am

2 Western Digital hard disks in my Antec SLK3000B: is it safe?

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The difference of noise between using the original cage and suspending the disks is amazing!

mountain
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Post by mountain » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:26 pm

Where did you guys get those plastic/metal clips for that hard drives? Thanks

Edit: BTW, do you guys think the P180 needs suspension?

Contact-DXM
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Post by Contact-DXM » Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:29 am

mountain wrote:Where did you guys get those plastic/metal clips for that hard drives? Thanks
I got mine at home depot.

miahallen
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Post by miahallen » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:08 am

mountain wrote:Where did you guys get those plastic/metal clips for that hard drives? Thanks

Edit: BTW, do you guys think the P180 needs suspension?
I got mine at a home improvement store called Unidy (I live in Japan). I have a P180b, and I have 4 HDD right now, 3x320GB Wester Digital in the lower chamber. They are mounted with the default method, and I cannot hear them. It was only the 160GB Wester Digital that I added in the 5.25" bays that was really noisy. I used the Silverstone bay adaptor, as you can see in the photos. That's what I modified with the suspension, it is very quiet now. I think I would have been happy with the default HDD racks in the upper location, but I removed my due to the 8800GTX I have installed taking up so much space. But if you don't have a huge graphics card, I would think it would be worth a shot. Good luck.

mountain
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Post by mountain » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:55 am

Thank you for your replies, both of you.

The.Jackal
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Post by The.Jackal » Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:27 pm

Does the type of elastics make a difference when you build a HD suspension?

And with "type" I mean, like flat elastics or rounded elastics

Flat:
Image

Rounded:
Image

Felger Carbon
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Post by Felger Carbon » Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:16 pm

The.Jackal wrote:Does the type of elastics make a difference when you build a HD suspension?
Well, the elastic should be elastic! :D

Rubber is best, but it ages, cracks, and breaks - not good.
Stretch Magic is a synthetic compound that doesn't seem to age and is hard to break - you have to work at it.

Just buy stuff that doesn't break, but isn't designed to hold up 200lb either. :wink:

Solmiester
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Post by Solmiester » Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:31 am

LOL, thank you everyone, I havent laughed at case mods so much in my life since someone 1st mentioned to me, he put a window in the side of his case, that was seriously a number of years ago.....LMAO

Suspended HD indeed.....oh, nevermind!

TomMe
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Post by TomMe » Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:25 am

Here's my contraption. Made it about a year ago I think. A bit of elastic string (used for clothing), 6 metal pieces to hang it up, some screws, the bottom of a broken floppy drive for support and some zip ties as a fail safe mechanism. :lol:

http://users.edpnet.be/tom/computer/2.jpg

Works great!

EDIT BY ADMIN: LARGE IMAGES >640px MUST BE LINKED ONLY!!!!

amjedm
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Post by amjedm » Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:03 pm

TomMe wrote:Here's my contraption. Made it about a year ago I think. A bit of elastic string (used for clothing), 6 metal pieces to hang it up, some screws, the bottom of a broken floppy drive for support and some zip ties as a fail safe mechanism. :lol:

Works great!
Do you notice any improvement if you remove the cable ties? I though they would transfer vibration?

Suosaaski
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Post by Suosaaski » Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:21 pm

My approach is visible here.

tsmvengy
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Post by tsmvengy » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:28 am

I remember seeing somewhere around this forum a design for suspension that consisted of a wooden frame (made of dowels?) with elastic in it. Anybody know where I can find this post, or a picture of it?

Matija
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Post by Matija » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:59 am

tsmvengy wrote:I remember seeing somewhere around this forum a design for suspension that consisted of a wooden frame (made of dowels?) with elastic in it. Anybody know where I can find this post, or a picture of it?
I've been searching for that as well, but no luck :( I need to properly suspend the drives in my SLK3000B, and a custom wooden frame seems to be my best bet. I will probably still have to drill-out the bottom holder (why the obsession with rivets, I will never know).

amjedm
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Post by amjedm » Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:37 am

Matija wrote:
tsmvengy wrote:I remember seeing somewhere around this forum a design for suspension that consisted of a wooden frame (made of dowels?) with elastic in it. Anybody know where I can find this post, or a picture of it?
I've been searching for that as well, but no luck :( I need to properly suspend the drives in my SLK3000B, and a custom wooden frame seems to be my best bet. I will probably still have to drill-out the bottom holder (why the obsession with rivets, I will never know).
You dudes mean this one?

viewtopic.php?p=270329&sid=255547c55491 ... 8d69ac72b0

Matija
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Post by Matija » Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:25 am

That's the one, thanks :)

tsmvengy
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Post by tsmvengy » Wed Aug 01, 2007 5:44 pm

amjedm wrote:
Matija wrote:
tsmvengy wrote:I remember seeing somewhere around this forum a design for suspension that consisted of a wooden frame (made of dowels?) with elastic in it. Anybody know where I can find this post, or a picture of it?
I've been searching for that as well, but no luck :( I need to properly suspend the drives in my SLK3000B, and a custom wooden frame seems to be my best bet. I will probably still have to drill-out the bottom holder (why the obsession with rivets, I will never know).
You dudes mean this one?

viewtopic.php?p=270329&sid=255547c55491 ... 8d69ac72b0
Yeah, I think that's it. Might have been another one. I'm thinking about putting something like that in my slk1650B to get some suspension and improve airflow.

TomMe
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Post by TomMe » Thu Aug 16, 2007 2:02 am

amjedm wrote:Do you notice any improvement if you remove the cable ties? I though they would transfer vibration?
Sorry for the late reply. :) I have thought about that, but I think the effect of the zip ties is negligible. They're not tightened, otherwise the elastic string would be useless of course. They're just hanging there in case of failure. In any case, there are other sounds that suppress the one produced by my HDD.

Suds
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Post by Suds » Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:15 pm

My take on HD Suspension in a P180b:

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It's damn stable.

porkchop
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Post by porkchop » Sat Aug 18, 2007 6:40 am

before:
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after:
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Image

a little worried it'd fall, but its alot cleaner and spacious this way. temps and the noise coming through is about the same too.

anyone have doubts about the hdds orientation?

peteamer
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Post by peteamer » Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:21 am

porkchop wrote:anyone have doubts about the hdds orientation?
You've obviously missed this thread. :lol:

Short answer: No.


Pete

snq
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Post by snq » Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:38 pm

Here's a pic of the disk in my HTPC :)

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protellect
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oh yeah!

Post by protellect » Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:11 pm

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1.8MM Stretch Magic. Worked Great! I think thinner would have been better and easier to work with, however.

TMonte
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Post by TMonte » Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:02 pm

These have been floating around for a while, just figured I'd add them to this thread...my solution in the venerable Lian-Li PC-xxxx.

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I found a bulk supplier for the o-rings, so I'm working on something very similar for my media/file server in a Coolermaster case. :D

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:01 am

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Its not pretty. Just prototype. Three 5,25" expansion slots sacrficed for suspensing Scythe QuietDrive that is has Samsung T-166 500gb HDD inside. Regular suspensioning wouldn't probably last 200 grams off hdd and 800+ grams grams of QuietDrive with just regular thing. I used folded bike innertube to suspend it safely. Bike innertube is strong enough, elastic but also ugly.

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