HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!

TMM · **Posted:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:12 am

Chevreuil_turbo wrote:

After 14 months holding this raid array, rings have started to crack. So no big deal, i'll put some new ones (inexpensive) and maybe look at something similar but in a different material... tygon tubes, silicone rings, we'll see.

Nice setup. I'd go for some elastic rather then rubber/silicon as it will last forever pretty much. I suspended my HDDs with rubber bands and they cracked in under a month :/

garacs1 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:28 pm

Here's my simple HD suspension method... 2 elastic bands and 4 cd-rom screws...

Fast-doing, effective, costless...

Bobfantastic · **Posted:** Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:55 am

...dangerous as a world-renound danger enthusiast doing something dangerous that everyone said they shouldn't do because the danger was so dangerous!

Elastic bands perish and snap when left under tension- unless you're very lucky, you'll wake up one day to find your hdd has bounced off the bottom of the drive cage and landed on the graphics card or motherboard, probably taking itself and a few other components out along with it. :shock:

Try bungee cords instead, or at least some foam for the drive to land on!

garacs1 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:38 am

Bobfantastic wrote:

...dangerous as a world-renound danger enthusiast doing something dangerous that everyone said they shouldn't do because the danger was so dangerous!

Elastic bands perish and snap when left under tension- unless you're very lucky, you'll wake up one day to find your hdd has bounced off the bottom of the drive cage and landed on the graphics card or motherboard, probably taking itself and a few other components out along with it. :shock:

Try bungee cords instead, or at least some foam for the drive to land on!

Ok ok, do not worry! it is just a temporary measure... I'll remove the HD from the case as soon as I finish some testings on some coolermaster heatsink

But I liked the idea of seeing the suspended hd wabble around a bit while accessing files or even starting windows xp... :twisted:

The bungee cords is, though, a good idea I've seen many times used by SPCR users. For a definitive placement, I'll surely use those instead.

thanks for you comments, nonetheless.

Garacs1

Sooty · **Posted:** Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:53 am

Yeah, very neat solution, garacs1

garacs1 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:21 am

Sooty wrote:

Yeah, very neat solution, garacs1

Neat and cheap... :lol:

Felger Carbon · **Posted:** Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:58 am

Rubber ages and rots. Bungee cord spreads the risk by using several strands of rubber plus a fabric wrap. I think this would be a great suspension, and far more reliable, using a synthetic elastic that does not age or rot. I refer, of course, to Stretch Magic. :wink:

jeremy · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:58 pm **Posts:** 38

http://jeremy.zxian.org/?p=63

I'm new to case modding. Read my blog there and stay tuned if you wish. I intend of getting heavily involved with case modding, making improvements with what I can. I look forward to learning much from this forum. Nick Geraedts, who does reviews for this site is a friend of mine. I'm mostly active on MSFN.org - nearing 5000 posts in 3 years. I admit this doesn't say anything for how much I know, because 80% of my posts are telling n00bz off. LOL, JKing... maybe 10%

Cheers,
Jeremy

sareiodata · **Posted:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:13 pm

Since this is my first post ...Hello to everyone...great site and forum...
Now to the point

I did a HDD suspension similar to this....

except the hdd is mounted inside the 5'' bay.
It is amassing how the seek sound almost vanished.
However, without any cooling the HDD (WD) overheated when idle, because it wasn't in contact with the case metal witch helped cool the HDD. I've fixed this by putting a 80mm (5V) fan in front of the hdd. The temperature dropped by 7 C, from 44 to 37 . In load without the fan it was 54 (48C is the max temperature recommended for my HDD ), and it dropped 10 C with the fan, being stable at 44C after 1 hour or so of defragmenting the hdd.

If I wouldn't have noticed the temperature there is a possibility I would have had a dead hdd in a couple of mounts...

goblindojo · **Posted:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:11 pm

After reading this thread, I thought I'd try some suspension of my own. Behold the vertically suspended 2.5" drive:

No, it's not supposed to be permanent, but I am going to get some elastic to suspend my usual 3.5" drives

jeremy · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:58 pm **Posts:** 38

Needs some serious cable arrangement done and it's too bad your PSU cables obstruct the flow of the air being blown to the rear fan...

goblindojo · **Posted:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:52 pm

jeremy wrote:

Needs some serious cable arrangement done and it's too bad your PSU cables obstruct the flow of the air being blown to the rear fan...

Not much I can do about the short ATX cable on the Sonata II PSU and the placement of the power connector on the 4coredual-vsta mobo, but it's not as bad as it looks with the 2.5" hanging there temporarily, normally it looks like this:

(except new gfx card and another IDE driver on the round IDE cable).

Sure I could make the cables at the top and bottom of the case neater, but I don't think they matter much to the airflow.

But we're veering off topic here... I promise a drive suspension pic once I get some elastic band thingies.

Niklas · **Posted:** Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:03 pm

A five minute setup to end the noise of my not so quiet WD2500JS
(came with a DELL dimension 8300).

Elastic suspention from my wives sewing box.

In place in my P180.

NICE!

djphatic · **Joined:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:02 am **Posts:** 7

heres my attempt in a Akasa Eclipse; not quite finished as I need to get some rubber strips to replace the cardboard to space the drives

amjedm · **Posted:** Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:01 am

djphatic wrote:

heres my attempt in a Akasa Eclipse; not quite finished as I need to get some rubber strips to replace the cardboard to space the drives

Hello mate

Why don't you use some cable ties under the plastic clips (for the top two drives) to hold up the drives? As long as the cable tie is the right size, it can't squeeze through the plastic clip.

bonestonne · **Posted:** Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:28 am

with my current cases, i can't do it, but if i get a new case, i plan to suspend them like the last picture, but instead of cardboard between the drives, i was thinking of springs...that and all the drives would have a ground lead to the case somewhere.

i can't suspend drives because they're moving around too much...reminds me i have a concert to record friday.

djphatic · **Joined:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:02 am **Posts:** 7

amjedm wrote:

Why don't you use some cable ties under the plastic clips (for the top two drives) to hold up the drives? As long as the cable tie is the right size, it can't squeeze through the plastic clip.

Great idea, just got rid of the cardboard for cable tie, works perfect. Thanks for your help.

amjedm · **Posted:** Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:03 pm

djphatic wrote:

amjedm wrote:

Why don't you use some cable ties under the plastic clips (for the top two drives) to hold up the drives? As long as the cable tie is the right size, it can't squeeze through the plastic clip.

Great idea, just got rid of the cardboard for cable tie, works perfect. Thanks for your help.

You're welcome.

Any chance you can update the above picture if it's not too much hassle? Ta.

MrBean · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:36 pm

Hi all, 1st post...
Will post more about this PC but that's a long story, so have some patience..

MrBean · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:37 pm

(click picture for hi-res)

The cooler milling could have been nicer but I had to do it with simple milling equipment.

Cooler: FISCHER SK 81/ 100 SA
Bottom of the HDD's grinded on waterproof sandpaper lying on a flat surface
(with water :shock:

don't get the electronics or air vent holes wet!)
to make the contact area between the HDD and cooler as large, flat and clean as possible.
Thermal paste between cooler and HDD's.

Clips: PANDUIT CCS12-S8-C0
Rubber: 30mm O-rings (standard for car/motorbike)
Low side only 2 O-rings per side -> largest stress -> first to fail.
UNC screws to go in the hdd: custom length !! (saw&file)

Some screws, washers, lock-rings & nylock nuts (to prevent it from coming loose)
Some aluminium.
Double sided foam tape to keep the low side aluminium in place during mounting (clean surfaces first!)

Test mount / make drawing first for correct O-ring size.

Felger Carbon · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:08 pm

Nice pic, Mr. Bean! Both near field and far field is in focus. Did you use floodlight(s) for illumination or just flash? Looks like floods. :wink:

MrBean · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:58 pm

Thanx

Natural light through a window. No more than that.
+ a bit of knowledge of making photos. :wink:

Background is case lid interior, about 15cm opened.

P.S. I finished the rest of the story about this PC.
--> HERE

peteamer · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:30 am

Felger Carbon wrote:

Nice pic, Mr. Bean!

Ain't that the truth!!! :shock:

And on a Canon Powershot A75!!!

MrBean wrote:

Natural light through a window. No more than that.

It's just that the window is 10' X 25' and the room has walls that are painted bright white with a mirrored ceiling and floor... :lol:

Superb photo whatever, best I've seen in a long while

.....

Nice one Centurion!

Pete

chinna_n · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:09 pm

MrBean wrote:

The cooler milling could have been nicer but I had to do it with simple milling equipment.

Cooler: FISCHER SK 81/ 100 SA
Bottom of the HDD's grinded on waterproof sandpaper lying on a flat surface
(with water :shock:

don't get the electronics or air vent holes wet!)
to make the contact area between the HDD and cooler as large, flat and clean as possible.
Thermal paste between cooler and HDD's.

Clips:
Rubber: 30mm O-rings (standard for car/motorbike)
Low side only 2 O-rings per side -> largest stress -> first to fail.
UNC screws to go in the hdd: custom length !! (saw&file)

Some screws, washers, lock-rings & nylock nuts (to prevent it from coming loose)
Some aluminium.
Double sided foam tape to keep the low side aluminium in place during mounting (clean surfaces first!)

Test mount / make drawing first for correct O-ring size.

IMHO this is best /rather perfect HDD suspension system I have ever seen so far. Positive locking, no Oops! Good cooling. Excellent design and implementation. It seems it is designed by qualified Mechanical Engineer!!

Hats off!!

amjedm · **Posted:** Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:29 am

chinna_n wrote:

IMHO this is best /rather perfect HDD suspension system I have ever seen so far. Positive locking, no Oops! Good cooling. Excellent design and implementation. It seems it is designed by qualified Mechanical Engineer!!

Hats off!!

I'll second that, very nice setup.

SD-Plissken · **Joined:** Sat May 20, 2006 10:37 am **Posts:** 148

stv · **Posted:** Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:40 am

hi
this is my alphonos version

Vidicio · **Posted:** Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:48 am

I'm ashamed of my solution after looking through all those beautiful custom mountings. I simply bought standard hardware and got a 3.5 inch HDD quite quiet. The seeking is still audible when listening very close but that doesn't bother me.

Of course I started with a relatively quiet drive: Samsung 320GB T166 7200RPM SATA.

I put it inside Scythe Quiet Drive box:

In vertical position it fits perfectly to HDD grommets of Antec SOLO:

Derek Baker · **Posted:** Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:21 pm

Just (re)suspended my drives - a pair of Samsung P120s.

Basically a copy of Mike's - http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page2.html - though I used the 5.25" cage built into my SLK3700AMB. With two opticals above, clearance is tight on the bottom, but seems fine. Drives are inaudible. Was a little concerned about heat, but currently the drives are at 32 and 30C in a room at 21C.

george_r4 · **Posted:** Thu May 03, 2007 1:46 am

First post on SPCR, thought about starting with my rig

HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!

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