Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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silentier
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Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by silentier » Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:09 am

Silent PCs and SSDs are common in 2018, but HDDs are still around for large storage. I don't think that a lot of people will buys 2tb SSDs for storage soon.
Vibrations seem not to be a problem anymore, but whining noise that you hear especially when you PC is quite otherwise.

People buying expensive and slow (~90mb/s 1gb LAN vs. 180mb/s sata) NAS devices to put there spinning HDDs in different rooms as a solution. Really nothing better?

Why don't we have HDD silencer anymore or a special damped enclosure in a pc case? Why are there no smart products in this area?

yakuman
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by yakuman » Wed Jan 31, 2018 12:28 pm

I've wondered about this too and surprised that other SPCR members seem to be able to tolerate the noise from higher capacity drives like 6TB+. Either we're unlucky with our drives, theirs are stored in a location far away from their PCs, they're stuck with old drives that didn't have as much noise as newer models, or not as many active forum members are around anymore, or they're experiencing hearing loss through old age :shock: :mrgreen:

Vicotnik
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Vicotnik » Wed Jan 31, 2018 1:26 pm

I don't have the space to properly enclose and suspend five or six HDDs. I put them in a small box and then I put that box away. Gigabit ethernet is plenty fast for my storage needs.

The market for HDD silencers in 2018 is very small. It was never very large to begin with and the SSD pretty much killed it.

What are we talking about here? A single storage HDD in the box to complement the SSD? That is a valid use case, for now. I keep an HDD enclosure on the shelf should I need it. But a large SSD would be so much more simple, and the pricing is less and less prohibitive.

Olle P
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Olle P » Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:50 am

I suppose I'm not the very sensitive type here...
Never seen HDD noise as a problem since my first computer in the mid '90ies.
* In the early days the HDD noise just helped me hear what was going on during startup and general computer use. Was the drive starting normally? (A very real issue when I added a second drive and the PSU wasn't powerful enough to reliably spin up both at the same time.) Was the computer working (with the drive) or had it locked itself up?
* After that, in the last 15+ years, HDDs have become so quiet that the noise to me is a complete non issue.

silentier
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by silentier » Thu Feb 01, 2018 2:31 pm

Vicotnik wrote:I don't have the space to properly enclose and suspend five or six HDDs. I put them in a small box and then I put that box away. Gigabit ethernet is plenty fast for my storage needs.

The market for HDD silencers in 2018 is very small. It was never very large to begin with and the SSD pretty much killed it.

What are we talking about here? A single storage HDD in the box to complement the SSD? That is a valid use case, for now. I keep an HDD enclosure on the shelf should I need it. But a large SSD would be so much more simple, and the pricing is less and less prohibitive.

Yes storage in addition to a 500gb SSD. A 2TB SSD is about 500-600 €. That's possible to buy, but still a lot when you just need storage.

zdb
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by zdb » Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:55 am

silentier wrote:Silent PCs and SSDs are common in 2018, but HDDs are still around for large storage. I don't think that a lot of people will buys 2tb SSDs for storage soon.
I built a new system a couple of weeks ago. Put in a 1TB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD as the system drive and a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD as the backup drive. So 2TB of SSD, stupidly fast at everything, fabulous endurance, ridiculously low power consumption (especially when idling), negligible heat production, negligible space requirement, minimal cabling, totally silent. I mean, what's not to love?

My last 3.5" HDD went into the bin in 2004 — 14 years ago. My last 2.5" HDD went into the bin in 2011 — 7 years ago. I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured, to be honest.

HDDs were invented in 1956 which would make the technology ~62 years old. I think the time has come for everyone to retire their roaring, thunderous dinosaurs. They had a good run.
Last edited by zdb on Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

lodestar
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by lodestar » Mon Feb 19, 2018 2:28 am

zdb wrote:I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured, to be honest.
Cost is still a significant factor. From my local supplier the cheapest 1TB hard drive is around 25% of their price for the Samsung 860 Evo 1TB equivalent. A 8TB hard drive can be had for about the same price as a 1TB SSD. But if you need 8TB what price would an SSD of this capacity be? At present (from them at least) you would need 2 x 4TB SSDs with a combined cost about 8 times that of an 8TB HDD.

zdb
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by zdb » Mon Feb 19, 2018 2:58 am

lodestar wrote:
zdb wrote:I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured, to be honest.
Cost is still a significant factor. From my local supplier the cheapest 1TB hard drive is around 25% of their price for the Samsung 860 Evo 1TB equivalent.
Interesting that you compared the cheapest possible HDD to the second-most expensive SSD. I'm not sure that sort of comparison is objective/fair enough to support any sort of analysis or conclusion.

Sure, the up-front $/GB of SSDs is higher than HDDs, but that conveniently ignores issues like endurance, lower power draw, reduced PSU requirements, reduced case sizes, reduced cooling/fan requirements, reduced building HVAC needs and ongoing costs, reduced global shipping costs, lower retail storage costs, complete elimination of sound-pollution measures, improved employee well-being, vast improvements in employee productivity. It's easy to 'win' an argument by cherry-picking the one and only factor that is in your favour, and ignoring the rest. :lol:

So yeah, like I said, I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured.

Afterthought: Getting a bigger HDD every time you run out of space is like building a new room onto your house every time you buy a new set of shoes. I suspect that the vast majority of data on the average consumer's hard drive is junk that has only ever been played/used/referenced once (if ever). Rather than buy new/bigger HDDs, they should just stop hoarding useless data and throw it out. Once you start doing that it's really quite surprising how little storage you actually need.

If I were a betting man I'd happily wager a thousand bucks that over 95% of consumers have less than 128GB of 'warm' data on their systems (data that has been used sometime in the last three years and will be used again within a year). I'm not sure how valuable it is to talk about 8TB systems when the average Joe needs less than 1/64th of that amount.

PS: I had a quick look on Newegg and found the cheapest ~128GB 3.5" HDDs to be in the $30-40 range. The cheapest 2.5" SSDs were in the $40-50 range. So a useful and appropriately-sized SSD is maybe 25-33% more expensive. Not quite as dramatic as the 800% number you arrived at.
Last edited by zdb on Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:20 am, edited 2 times in total.

lodestar
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by lodestar » Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:17 am

Yes, I agree that SSDs are the way forward but the upfront cost of a storage drive, like any other computer component, is always going to be an issue. Another factor is that the SSD boot drive + HDD storage drive configuration has been fairly commonplace. An alternative to storage drives of any form is now the Cloud. For example a Microsoft Office subscription will bring with it 1TB of Cloud storage. Yes, there are issues about Cloud storage particularly the need for a reliable, reasonably quick internet connection. But it does make the SSD boot drive + cloud storage setup a viable alternative which should not affect SSD sales but will probably only result in yet more reduction in the increasingly diminishing sales of HDDs. Incidentally how ever much of a dinosaur HDDs are it seems from this source that it's going to be a long time before they become extinct (SSD sales by unit are not expected to exceed HDDs until 2021).

zdb
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by zdb » Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:32 am

lodestar wrote:An alternative to storage drives of any form is now the Cloud. For example a Evil Empire subscription will bring with it 1TB of Cloud storage. Yes, there are issues about Cloud storage particularly the need for a reliable, reasonably quick internet connection. But it does make the SSD boot drive + cloud storage setup a viable alternative which should not affect SSD sales but will probably only result in yet more reduction in the increasingly diminishing sales of HDDs.
Agreed. This is a logical and extraordinarily-likely approach. Use a 'modestly-sized' SSD for 'warm' data, and then encrypt and upload cold/old/stale data to the Cloud until you're sure you don't need it any more — then delete it.
Incidentally how ever much of a dinosaur HDDs are it seems from this source that it's going to be a long time before they become extinct (SSD sales by unit are not expected to exceed HDDs until 2021).
Thanks for the reference. So HDDs will officially be passé in 2021. Hey, vinyl made a comeback recently... maybe after a few decades of drifting into irrelevance, HDDs will burst back onto the scene again in 2060!? :wink: "Yeah man, quantum storage is good and all, but check this out — you can store a full song on a kilogram of metal, using magnets!" ... "Whoah, dude!"

Reachable
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Reachable » Mon Feb 19, 2018 7:09 am

Unless I'm mistaken, HDDs are still the medium of choice for data centers, so that's a part of the equation.

Also, most people buy pre-assembled computers, and the computer makers seem to think that the typical user wants to have lots of storage. Does that storage actually get used or is it just a marketing thing, running on inertia, where there's a fear that the prospective buyer won't think he's getting a good machine unless the storage capacity spec is high?

Olle P
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Olle P » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:52 am

Local storage is used!
Like the 11 TB of pictures a hobby photographer I know makes use of.
Those interested in filming will use up way more than that.

Even a 500 GB SSD is currently prohibitively expensive for me, even though I'd love to have one for my game library (which is currently ~350 GB when I only have the games in "active" use there).

flyingsherpa
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by flyingsherpa » Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:45 am

zdb wrote: So yeah, like I said, I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured.
Really? Then you're not thinking big enough... tons of people are getting into things like photography and digital video (every kid I know wants to be a youtuber vlogger, drones videos are popular now too). Personally, my main PC doubles as media server/HTPC so I have tons of video files constantly being added, and I do go back and watch older files all the time. I have a 3TB storage HDD (which is probably on the low end for most HTPCs), which is getting close to being full, I can't wait for the MAMR drives to come out soon to hopefully get a quiet larger drive. Doing all this on SSD would be several times the cost. Data centers also consume huge numbers of HDD and need all the capacity they can get. I believe they have 12TB drives now, an equivalent SSD would be like 10-15x the cost.

Sure, for my parents, a 256GB SSD is enough (my mom actually filled a 128GB with pics/video of grandkids), but tons of people (and companies) need much larger storage, and the cost / GB gap widens quickly at higher capacities.

zdb
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by zdb » Thu Feb 22, 2018 3:12 am

flyingsherpa wrote:
zdb wrote: So yeah, like I said, I'm surprised HDDs are still being manufactured.
Really? Then you're not thinking big enough...
Hmmm... I guess that's one way to look at it. Here's another:
I sure don't plan on having to walk into a DHA (Digital Hoarders Anonymous) meeting and introduce myself. :lol:

Seriously, though... What I probably should have said is "I'm surprised HDDs are still being sold." And by 'sold' I mean sold through retail channels to regular consumers — I'm surprised I still see HDDs on shelves when I walk into a regular computer/electronics store.

I totally understand the need for corporations, governments, and certain occupations (like professional photographers/videographers) to have large amounts of storage. That's fine. That's not the 95% of the population — the average Joe — that I was referring to. That's the 5%... and none of them shop where I shop.

Regardless, HDD sales will be a minority in two and a bit years, and the numbers are only heading on one direction — down. I'm sure that in a decade or two we'll look at HDD owners the same way we look at steam train enthusiasts — bemused and slightly puzzled by their enduring attachment to big, noisy, slow lumps of metal.

Bringing it back to the OP's original question: "Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?" Probably because, like steam trains, there's no point investing money developing products for a technology that is rapidly approaching obsolescence... Even if HDDs continue to be used in places like datacentres for years to come, datacentres are not homes. Datacentres don't put their drives in desktop cases. Datacentre drives don't need to be quiet. The market for HDD silencing systems has mostly evaporated so it's time to retire products, clear out inventory, and start producing something else (which is more likely to turn a profit).

lodestar
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by lodestar » Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:20 am

It's not entirely true that there are NO good HDD silencers currently available, a few are still clinging on if you can find them.

For this example Amazon UK sell the "Sharkoon Hdd-Vibe-Fixer 5.25 Hard Disk Drive Enclosure for Decoupling Hard Disk Drives in PC Tower". Further details are on the Sharkoon website here and I see from their Where To Buy page that they do have retailers for their products in North America.

Image

Olle P
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Olle P » Fri Feb 23, 2018 1:59 am

zdb wrote:... "I'm surprised HDDs are still being sold." And by 'sold' I mean sold through retail channels to regular consumers — I'm surprised I still see HDDs on shelves when I walk into a regular computer/electronics store.

I totally understand the need for corporations, governments, and certain occupations (like professional photographers/videographers) to have large amounts of storage. That's fine. That's not the 95% of the population — the average Joe — that I was referring to. That's the 5%... and none of them shop where I shop. ...
1. You don't need to be a "professional" to require a significant amount of storage.
2. SSD is still considerably more expensive than HDD for storage >400 GB, and therefore of use for those who don't want to spend a small fortune on their computer.
3. I'd even go so far as to claim that HDD is the better choice for more users than what gaming graphic cards are over iGPUs, and gaming graphic cards found just about everywhere.

Vicotnik
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Vicotnik » Fri Feb 23, 2018 4:00 am

zdb wrote:I totally understand the need for corporations, governments, and certain occupations (like professional photographers/videographers) to have large amounts of storage. That's fine.
I'm not fine with that. I want lots of storage, general computing power and really dangerous stuff like strong encryption in the hands of the masses. The editors of Washington Post feel safer if we all rent our stuff. ;)

Stormwind
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Re: Why are there no good HDD silencer in 2018?

Post by Stormwind » Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:20 pm

Similar to the Sharkoon (if not somehow related), Noise Magic still sells several hard drive vibration dampeners:

http://www.noisemagic.com/index.php?cPa ... 7d2871e8c1

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