Since I don't really want to put my new 'Cuda V 80GB and especially not the soon-to-be-mine 'Cuda V 120GB SATA into one of those SilentDrives, after everything i could read here, I have to look for another sollution.

I know that the SmartDrive is a nice product and it has areally good reputation over here, and the SmartDrive2002 should be even better... but they (especially the 2002) are really expensive and (which is even more important) they don't seem to be available where I live (germany).

So I don't know if e.g. Silicon Acoustics would ship to europe for a reasonable price, but i guess it would make the already expensive devices even more expensive to me... so what?

Well there actually is another product, that is made by a german company called Deltatronic. Most of you might have heard about them because of their 'silent' pc that has a fanless 360 PSU.
So *I* am interested in their Silentium! HDD Enclosure:

http://www.deltatronic.info/Technik/Fes ... latte.html
At least they don't state this thing would be no good for 7200 drives

As far as i have heard it should reduce the noise enough for me, but i'm pretty unsure as to how well it might handle the HDDs temps. I know for sure that it keeps the drive a lot cooler than the SilentDrive, but this shouldn't really surprise anyone. I just don't know *how* well this would be, and if it would be really save to stick some 120Gig SATA drive into this unit, without further active cooling.

Has anyone ever had any experience with this or can comment on this?
I really would like to hear how it performs compared to a SmartDrive / SmartDrive2002, but I fear that the Silentium is not available to those that have access to SmartDrives and vice versa.... could someone please prove me wrong?

Some more close-up pics of the unit:

http://www.de.tomshardware.com/praxis/0 ... um-04.html

We've reported on this unit here but have not received a review sample. It looks and sounds pretty good, maybe you can ask them to send us a sample to review? If they're unwilling to ship across the ocean, maybe we can get them to send you one to review? Just some thoughts...

Good point. I'll see what I can do.

That is one sweet looking PSU!!

I've owned may fairly high end amplifiers, and I always think that if they can have a passivly cooled PSU for a monster Amplifier - it shouldn't be any harder to make one for PC's. The main diff being that an AMP is specifically used for music/audio reproduction and inherently needs to be silent, while many people don't care if their PC PSU sounds like a hair dryer.... But I do!

Well well, i tried.

Their answer was pretty short but clear; They don't give out any samples atm.

So maybe once when I'll have some money again I'll give this unit a try. Should take some time though :/

Well well, I really start to like living in germany + beeing interested in silent-computing

Just saw another product of that kind from another small german manufacturer called LEY:



Here's the product page of this product: http://www.ley-ecd.de/FRAMES/FEK-I.html
And a more detailed PDF: http://www.ley-ecd.de/DL/fek-i.pdf

I already did see this thing some time ago, but I guess i didn't really realize that it might reduce HDD noise at that time

So well, this basically is more of a hdd-cooler than anyone of the other enclosures I have seen this far. But as far as I have heard this unit *might* reduce the noise of the HDD a bit less effective than a SilentDrive.. BUT:
I really really thing the SilentDrive's 'Noise' rating of 5 compared to 8 for the SmartDrive and 6(!!) for the NoiseMagic NoVibes III is more than unfair! Yes, the SilentDrive let's your HDDs heat up really badly, BUT it does do a decent job at reducing the noise. At least this is what every single review i have read told me. Especially comparing it to the NoVibes II and one of the many similar products, the SilentDrive is said to reduce noise much better.
Sure its alright to warn users about this product, but the quality rating and the text does this well enough. Maybe the noise rating would just mislead some people who know the SilentDrives to thing things like NoVibes III would reduce the noise even more....

oh welll, I let myself go a bit... back to my previous topic:

Since this LEY "F E K - I" seems to do a decent job at cooling 7200-HDDs and seems to reduce the noise considerably, I guess e.g. 2x 80GB 'cuda IV or V combined with this product (@ ~57€ cheaper than SmartDrive) would be a quiet *and* reliable sollution.

Mmmmh this posting might read a bit too negative, this was not intended, but actually I should be in bed right now Just wanted to point at this product - maybe someone here already has first hand experience?

The rating is not arbitrary, it is based on hand-on experience with all 3 of those devices. The NoVibesIII is somewhat more effective than the SilentDrive with most drives because decoupling has such a huge impact on noise. People don't realize how much until they try decoupling their drive. SilentDrives makes almost no difference at all to mechanically transmitted noise. Read Seagate's paper on drive noise, you will see they say a drive that makes less acoustic noise but more vibration can often sound louder in real use!

I have not tried these with REALLY LOUD drives, only quiet to moderately noisy ones. (But a very noisy one is such a big challenge to silence that I don't really see the point.)

I think I got your point So since this LEY product does decouple the drives, cool them *and* reduce the high pitched noises they produce I think I'll have to try this at some point.

I tried this LEY thing a few years ago. Back then I believe it was mainly marketed as a hdd silencing device rather than a decoupling and cooling device. You can save yourself a few euro's by not buying this thing as it it really lousy at silencing any hdd made noise. I tried it for an hour or so and than gave up on it.

Right now I have 2 barracudas V 120 Gb running that are watercooled by Aquadrives (www.aqua-computer.de). I have made them almost completely silent by wrapping the aquadrives in MagicFleece (www.aconto.de). Before that both barracudas V made a pesky whining noise that was actually unworthy to the reputation of beeing the most silent hdd around.

I also have 1 barracuda IV 80 GB running, silenced by a Silentdrive. Right now DTemp shows 39 degrees celcius for this drive. I find this pretty amazing as this Silendrive enclosure is the very same that killed my first barracuda V 120 Gb because it ran too long at more than 60 degrees celsius. Yes Silentdrive sucks at cooling your hdd but does an excellent job at silencing it.

Today I ordered the Deltatronic Silentium (www.deltatronic.info) that is supposed to cool and silence. I will post my findings about it here sometime.

Thanks for the info!

Won't buy that LEY thing now, but I still have pretty high hopes for the Silencium Kit, so I'll appreciate any input on this device. My (one and only) SilentDrive does a decent job at silencing and 'cooling' my second drive an IBM 30Gig 7200rpm - I just don't want to put my main drive 8Baracuda V 80GB into this thing :-/).
So once you get your Silencium Kit PLEASE come back and give just a little 'review'

Thanks

for a cuda, a homemade elstic suspension is more than enough

I disagree. Sure I don't own a 'cuda IV 40GB, which *might* really be so quiet that such enclosures wouldn't reduce the noise too much, but My 'cuda V 80GB and other 'cuda IV 80GBs I've heard are definitely less audible if enclosed.