Does anyone know which is better at vibration isolation: grommets or velcro? I have a 2.5" 5400 rpm WD HDD. I've got some grommets ordered, but don't have any velcro yet.

Maybe velcro could be added to the "HDD vibration & noise reducing methods - ranked" sticky thread?

Not sure about that... Velcro is not really that absorbant for vibrations. The material doesn't really stretch. It good to hold thing together (I use it for cable management) but for vibrations reduction...

I have to disagree with Frenchie even though I have never used velcro on the inside of a PC, the idea of having "fuzzy" plastic + thousands of tiny plastic hooks makes me wonder about static.!

Almost anything that vibrates can pass on those vibrations to something that it touches, the sides of a fans and HDD's are the obvious ones inside a PC, just about any way of seperating these items from the case can reduce the vibrational noise (but never the airborne noise). I have used string in the past as well as cable ties and both are better than directly mounting a HDD in a cheap shit case. Therefore I must conclude that velcro will also be better under those circumstances.

Please be careful though as static could be devastatingly bad for a HDD, and also note that there are many ways that will be superior to velcro for reducing/removing vibration borne sounds from a HDD.

I have only even DIY suspended 1 hard drive, that was done with "1mm thick Stretch Magic" and a 2.5" HDD, it was perfectly successful, especially as part of the reason for me doing it was that I had nowhere else to mount the drive apart from a 5.25" bay, which I removed the cover from so it didn't require cooling.


Andy

I've used velcro to attach case fans, don't know how well it would do vs. grommets for isolation. I do recommend it for the lightweight SSDs if you just want to glomp the drive onto the side of a case somewhere.

w.r.t. velcro and static....sorta depends on where it's attached. If it's attached to the metal back....the metal back is tied to DC ground via the supply line. If the other side is attached to the case...also grounded.

Thanks for the info. I'll post back after I try both methods. I first read about velcro here, and sorta laughed because it was so simple, but then got to thinking it may actually work quite well to isolate vibrations because of all the little fingers, and the increased (or is it decreased!?) surface area.

Reminded me how the soft rubber feet did little to stop vibrations transferring to my desk, but when I put my case on some fabric, the vibrations stopped. Maybe the velcro will be like putting my HDD on a bed of fabric

One thing, eventually, the adhesive back on the velcro will lose it's grip. Don't know how long that will take for your use. When I used it on a case fan, it was 4 tiny squares (no more than 1cm on a side) covering the hole mounting areas. It lasted two years, I think. That may be an extreme case of fan weight to velcro footprint area, though.