Well, depends on how it falls and what it falls on. My guess would be that a drive that falls flat on a hard surface during operation will likely be dead, even if it drops only an inch.

A 3.5" drive cage, a 2.5" drive and a bit of 1.8mm Stretch Magic:

Yes. If the drive is running at the time, it will almost certainly cause a head crash. The tolerances are very small, and once the platter surface has been damaged the Bernoulli effect will probably fail every time the head skims above that region, causing more crashes, more and more damage...

The drive might not be killed instantly, but I think from that point you may well see it deteriorate at an ever-increasing rate....

Yea, thats fine. lol

Besides, I change out the bands periodically.

Oh well, whatever... it's your data, so no skin off my nose. Just so long as other people don't think that a running drive falling "only an inch" onto a hard surface won't do it any harm...

simply putting a few mm of foam or something underneath any suspended drive would be a good idea - a fall of just a few inches onto metal or concrete can mean 100G+ on landing.

that may or may not also be a good reason in general for suspending drives sideways... not good if they fall regardless, but at least that way you're not guaranteed a head crash.

Case: Antec SLK3700BQE

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB

Got rid of the HDD-rack and fixed the suspension out of an elastic rope of some kind, the result looks pretty ugly but is quite efficient so the looks don't bother me at all.

bha* - how did you remove your HDD-rack? Or anyone with a 3700BQE, how exactly do you get the rack out of there?

heres mine

i think it works too!



nathan

using elastic to suspend a Samsung 1614C and one 80mm silenx spinning on 7V. the disk won't move, i transported quite a few times the pc, no problems there.

Used a pair of plairs to get rid of the things that hold the rack inside the case and then a screwdriver to bend it out of the case.

I've got part of an old t-shirt folded up and lying underneath the drive in case it falls...

Case: Antec SLK3000B. I love this case, but it's a bit of a PITA to rig up a home made elastic suspension in the SLKs. So I bought a NoiseMagic NoVibes III. Is this cheating?

So I figured the least I could do for the SPCR'ers is NOT just screw it into a 5.25" drive bay. I want my HD down low, where it's cool. But I also don't want the swinging drive when I move my machine. So I used velcro stuck on to the NoVibes, and velcro in the case stuck on to some soft foam-tape-strip stuff.

Gratuitous pride-of-ownership shots:





NoVibes III:




Velcro:





Action shot:



Case standing upside down - HD holds on!



Specs:
A643500+ Winchester
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Corsair XMS3200 2x512MB
Samsung Spinpoint SP1213C 120GB
Zalman 7000A AlCu with Zalman Fanmate2
Seasonic Super Tornado 400W
Zalman passive northbridge cooler thingy
Nexus 120mm with Zalman Fanmate2
M-Audio Audiophile 2496
Sapphire Radeon 9550 128 MB, passively cooled

Ralf Hutter, suspending a 2.5" that's OVERKILL!
That's why we love you.

I got some new pics:

Ha! Wait till you see the pics of my suspended Compact Flash drive!

It's clicks all that much, does it?

How's Ralf these days?

Aris

Say homes! Wazzup witchu?

I'm doing as well as can be expected.

Im not really shure this counts as suspension, but this is a SpinPoint enclosed in a LEVEL HDD Shell lying on the case floor on some acoustipack foam.. The enclosure was the only one i could find here in Finland, and its pretty basic.. Removes the whine my HDD made, and idle noise is only audible when my ear is next to it. Seeks are still somewhat audible outside the case, but i like to hear its working so no problems with that. Its the idle noise that used to bug me. The Shell consists of two aluminium heatsinks with some very dense foam to block the ends of the enclosure with some aluminium plates screwed on to keep it all together. Just lying there, my idle temp is 31c.

What is that black stuff you used on the stretch magic itself? Techflex?

Good 'ol shrink tubing. I put it there to keep the Stretch Magic from getting chafed where it rides on the slightly sharp, punched out holes of the drive cage.

How about suspended hard drives in a foam box?





My "bird house" box made from foam (designed like this to suck intake air through the bottom filter) wasn't quiet enough so I modified it to suspend the drives inside it.

Now I've got the best of both worlds. Some more info here

HDD suspension rev. 2.0





Now it cools fine . Had to redirect the exaust of the GPU cooler though, in order to avoid preheating of air blown on the drives.

Ugh need to spring-clean the case.


Cuda IV 60GB, SP 80GB. 34C and 36C idle.

The normal 3700AMB drivecage is so flimsy and prone to vibrations

[edit] better pic?

Inspiration mainly from the http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=18696 thread linked earlier.

Hey, you should enter that thing in this contest!

well here is my previous "hdd" setup




and here is the current


router booting from CF - 32Mb for m0n0wall or 128Mb for eisfair


webbserver 's 1Gb card

hey all,

Here's something I rigged up today as I was feeling inspired. I simply used 2 small bungee cords looped together nice and tight, and used them to have my HDDs sit on top.

Here's a "before" shot...



...and here are they are w/ the hard drives (apologies for the blurriness, low lighting!)



Very simple and effective! My HDDs used to resonate fairly loudly esp. under load thanks to the lighter aluminum my Antec P160 case is made out of.

Here's a shot of the case w/o the side panel.



The bottom HDD is an old Quantum that's used for storage, it's currently unplugged so I used utilized the regular HDD slide holder. Yeah, I know the foam looks ghetto but at least it does a half decent job!

Is that yours jwill? I'm 99% sure i've seen that pic on the net before

That is actually my system.

I have since created a Stretch Magic suspension using a one-piece 3.5" to 5 1/4" drive adapter. Now I can remove the drive without messing with the suspension.

nope. josephclemente's indeed. loved the idea though , i did it to my own rig.


sounds interesting. any pictures?