Just the no break, really.... but are you sure no part of the drive is touching the chassis? And what kind of drive is it? If it's one of the older ball-bearing types, then you're probably not going to get much improvement due to the high airborne noise.

I have no idea what type of drive it is but I do have a newer IDE WD 160GB. It was made in November or 2008, so that should be better right? Its a WD1600AAJB WD Caviar SE, I'll try it out.

yes, this should be much quieter if the old one is a ball-bearing model. Easy enough to check the HDD type btw -- look under disk drives in device manager in windows.

cudos to everyone and their great assemblies

I shall venture into this endeavour with rubber/elastic bands,
shoelaces and skipping rope

I've been trying to use Stretch Magic to suspend my hard disks, but damn, it is difficult!

The stuff is just *way* too stretchy - as soon as I pop a hard drive on it, the cord just stretches and the hard disk ends up resting on the bottom of the drive tray (P182)

How do you guys do it? How do you tie the knots as well, mine keep slipping!

What size are you using? You need to use at least 1mm, if not bigger.

To keep the knots from coming untied I tie double knots, then put a drop of Super Glue over the knot.

I'm using 1.0mm stretch magic.

Its just very difficult to get a good grip on and the stretch factor is enormous!


I might go see if I can just find the bungee cord/clothing elastic in a store somewhere.

I got 5 meter of elastics at a local sailor shop for 2,25 euro (!!) and suspended them in my cooler master stacker case. I also had to hang the fans in front of them because the original harddisk brackets served also as the attachments for the fans. The plus point of that the fans now actually have rubber between them and the case. The elastic on the front of the harddisk was a bit close to the edge, so I attached the elastic there to the harddisk with eh 'bread-bag-strips'.

The search sound is a lot quieter now and the spinning sound is a little softer as well. Overall I am very happy with the result. I can hardly hear them when I defrag!!

Hi,

I sending my two Seagates to RMA and is going to use this oppurtunity to do a little suspension too.

I am thinking about attach anchors to each of the drive's and use springs to suspend them vertically (ie: have the top of the drive facing side of the case, )

I suppose using a harder spring will be more durable and at least provide a little heat sinking.


(I might use some zip ties to tie it loosely just in case)


Is this a good idea?

Hi.

Heres a quick tutorial on how Ive done mine.

I wanted it to look quite professional, easy to setup and with no tying knots!

You'll need (all the stuff can be bought on ebay or diy stores):

* 7mm Hex Screwdriver
* 2.5mm Allen Key
* 4x 10mm M4 Button Head Allen Bolts
* 4x M4 Nylok Nuts
* 4x 5mm Rubber Lined P-Clips (this was the most expensive, I got a pack of 20 for £6 off ebay, whereas in a motorbike shop, they wanted £3 for EACH!)
* 2x Hairbands (approx 4.5cm in diameter and about 4mm thickness)



Assemble everything like so:



When youve screwed the bolts through the case and alls fitted, you can twist the bands and put the drive in and youre done!



I wanted to try to keep vibration to a minimum hence the use of rubber lined p-clips and nylok nuts to avoid self-unscrewing. The only problem I may have is the metal bit on the band might rattle on the top so I might tape it down. I didnt want it at the bottom in case it touches the live circuitry.

My next project is to fit aluminium heatsinks to the sides of the drives to cool.

Hope this is of use to someone

This machine is built to be a pure fileserver, so i wanted as little as possible noise, while still keeping the hdds nice and cool.

The frame is actually some kind of curtain accessories I found at Clas Ohlson (article id: 31-163) for about 4$ a pair, and the drives are suspended with ordinary 2cm clothing elastics stuck together with Velcro strips.

The fan mounts are taken from the Silverstone CFP52B drivebay adapter.

I used 1.5 meters of clothing elastic to suspend a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 in my Antec NSK3480. The elastic runs twice around the SQD through loops I fashioned from plastic strips cut from some packaging material. They were made by cutting holes in their ends, making a loop and then screwing them into the mounting holes of the Scythe Quiet Drive.

The set-up works very well and only sometimes can the seeks be faintly heard. Temperature remains steadily at 28 °C.

What thickness of bungee chord and what size of P-Clips are people using?

I can only find 3mm thick bungee chord on ebay - is this enough?

Meant to reply to this the other but forgot

The bungee cord I've used in the past is 3mm.

I don't suspend hard disks anymore as the hard disks in the Akasa Eclipse were 'dangling' and used to hit the side of the case. Did have 'proper' suspension in the P180 but now using Scythe Quiet Drive. I now put hard drives in a normal HD cage and rest that on foam - using this method in the Eclipse and the Antec NSK4000 II

The internal diameter of the (hole) clips I use is 7mm (left to right).

How many do you need, I may have some spare

Here is mine:

i havnt tested it out yet, waiting for mb and cpu and hsf to arrive.

i taped the back of the bottom 5.25inch bay, then i put the covers on all of the drive bays except the bottom one.so that the air sucked in is from the front, then i pan to make some ducting to guide the air neatly .

The psu area is taped up, because im going to be using a pico psu .

i got the elastic from work, its used to hold tarpaulin to scaffolding, if it can hold tarpaulin in the wind, then it can hold the hard drive.


http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9788.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9789.jpg

sorry about the bad quality pictures. the lighting in this room sucks

at the moment, the hdd is resting on the elastic, and is held on by cable ties, there is probably a better way to do this , but i cannot think of any.

any pointers will be appreciated

edit: im gona be replacing the cable ties with p clips later in the week.

I made a few changes,

I found another piece of elastic in the cupboard, so i can do away with the cable ties (yay)

I put the Hdd inside an spare external aluminium enclosure, to help with heat dissipation, and noise dampening

The new mb etc should arrive tomorrow so i can test it .

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9790.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9791.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9792.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9793.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg10 ... MG9794.jpg

edit: i have suspended the hard drive without the external caddie, the temperature stays below 40*C according to hdparm.

I've managed to squeeze a suspended 3.5" HDD into the 3.5" bay of my Silverstone LC-11M.

The drive cage is wider than 3.5" but with indentations around the screw holes to bring them into contact with the drives.

Some gentle persuasion with a hammer flattened out these sections giving me room to suspend the drive with several loops of 1mm plastic beading thread from a craft store.

It was tricky working with the limited space. In the end I made straight loops with plenty of slack and then twisted them around the drive.

Sorry I can't post these pictures properly but I don't yet have the required 3 posts.

Side view showing flattened screw holes:
i5.photobucket dot com /albums/y161/Putin/Image026.jpg

Just enough clearance to keep the drive suspended:
i5.photobucket dot com /albums/y161/Putin/Image027.jpg

Final installation:
i5.photobucket dot com /albums/y161/Putin/Image028.jpg

Airflow isn't great around the drive. I'll see how it goes and probably mount a fan directly over the drive cage. There's not much clearance so that will mean cutting a hole and adding a grill to the case. A project for another weekend I think..

Hey, when suspending a hard drive, is it best to have the cords tight, or loose?

Hi Everyone

Here are my pics, and a full tutorial guide to my technique:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=54481







I hope this is useful.

Never bothered with my single platter 160GB Samsung, but the three platter 1TB drive I got recently produces significantly more vibration (I almost wonder if something's wrong with it, but I have nothing to compare it to). Could easily feel the vibrations through the case, and even slightly through the floor next to the case.

Anyways, finally got around to suspending it, which helps tremendously. Not much space for this in the NSK-3300, especially since I have two optical drives up top. Credit for the suspension method goes to porkchop (his thread can be found in the gallery section). An added bonus is that the air being pulled through the front intake and over the drive does a pretty good job of cooling it. Originally it was mounted on the bottom and I had a 100mm fan blowing on it. I think this may actually be slightly more effective at cooling than direct airflow from the (albeit low speed) intake fan.

The kicker is that seeks are still pretty noticeable. All airborne noise, but at least suspension took care of vibration induced noise.

My attempt to silence my noisy Seagate drive in my Antec mini P180. Difference is amazing, so glad I did this

Great work! These Antec cases really lend themselves to silent modding!

Hi, guys.

I've been over this thread more than once already, just ogling the great work you guys have done in your setups.

Until now, I've never been able to build a suspended drive setup (way too lazy on my gaming machine using a 320GB 321KJ Samsung drive - which btw has a PowerColor PCS+ HD4870 in it, so "low noise" is not really an option), but with the NAS I'm building things are looking brighter

So, after I get around silencing the stock Intel cooler of my E3200 Celly (great low power chip, btw, idle power draw with undervolting and IES enabled on my G31M-GS mobo is around 5W, and under 9W full blast), for which I'll be using a rubber-mounted 12cm PWM fan ducted to the CPU socket, where the stock Celeron heatsink will be changed to a stock E4300 heatsink (taller, with removable fan and copper core), I'll move to the HDDs.

The problem starts here. I'll be using a Nox Coolbay Basic case, so I'll have 9 5.25'' trays, and I'd like to be able to put 15 drives on those trays (I'll probably need to unbend some metal in the process, but we'll see). Every single one of them suspended, of course. AND I want to still be able to take drives out without having to dismantle the whole thing, the machine being a NAS and all... hehehe

I've seen some of your approaches, but the most I've seen is a 2-in-3 drive suspension, with a rather hard way of handling HDD changes...

So, what are your thoughts on the best way to decouple my HDDs? I was thinking somewhere along the lines of two or three rubber/elastic lines running over and under the HDDs, with rubber spacers (like aquarium hoses?) and indentations where hooks fitted to the HDD mounting holes would sit. No movement thanks to the indentations, no vibration thanks to the rubber and elastic parts.

Does this sound right? Also, could the elastics be changed to a custom-made, all-in-one (with pre-carved indentations) hard rubber cilinders, bolted/hooked to the rest of the case?

Cheers.

Miguel

Here's mine

http://i45.tinypic.com/eu4wnq.jpg

Hi Calande,
How is the HD tied at the bottom ? Is it just hanging ?

PS : post pics of your systems in the galery, it looks interesting !!!!

Damn, that is DANGEROUS...

Probably one of the best decoupling options to date (the best one probably being touch-free suspension, but unless someone has found a way to make HDDs and magnets to play nice or to utterly break the laws of Physics, then that's pretty much one of the best ones that can be had...

That is, in terms of material resonance, which will be practically zero, since that wire can probably flex and vibrate enough in a way no meaningful vibrations will end up in the case frame. In terms of HDD health, though, I must say I'm shocked. Even if that is high-durability, high-strength nylon, it's too flimsy of a setup.

I mean, two contact points like that means only one axis/one direction is secure. The other two axis and five directions (I'm adding the missing Y axis direction to this) are not. The HDD can not only bump the case sides (given the length of the wire), but it can also hit the HDD trays rather hard. That, for me, is not healthy. A stronger bump on the case while it's standing or a "whoops, I forgot to park my HDD before transporting the case" (probably only the early DOS guys will get this one ) and there goes an HDD.

I don't want to bash the setup to no end, obviously. I actually like it, and it seems like a good idea for single-disk systems. However, at least one more axis should be directly covered by this setup (and a clever wire placement, which you are obviously capable of, should limit movement on the third axis.

Btw, is that a Samsung HDD? That oval metalic shape on the side, and the top cover form is oddly similar to my two 321KJs...

Cheers.

Miguel

Bom dia!

@frenchie: it's only tied at the top with two strings

@miguel: I utterly agree with you. I'm just waiting to replace my WD Caviar with my new Kingston SSDNow drive. My current HDD is the only mecanical device with moving parts. I have a fanless PSU and a fanless ventirad

More like "Boa noite", since it's nighttime already (at least in Portugal ), but thank you for the extra mile. There aren't that many guys who will go there.

I don't know where you're from exactly, but I'll take your stats as correct, and say "Bonsoir" back at you. I'm not used to French, you know? It's been like 8 years since I last studied it, and I'm rusted.


Brrr... I'm having the drunk elephant in a china and crystal shop again...


Oh, THAT explains it... Please, please, PLEASE, replace the disk ASAP, I'm hurting just by remembering the picture and I don't even own the thing...

Cheers.

Miguel

I just suspended my drives out of sheer boredom at 2AM in the morning. At my age I really should be in bed sleeping through my impending old age, but this is more fun.

What sort of drive performance loss are people seeing after suspending their drives? I immediately noticed some hesitation/delay during boot.

It's obvious the "floating" drives now have nothing to stablize them so any vibration must translate to the actuator inside.

Any stability issues?

Do folks here ground the drives to the chassis or simply rely on grounding from the power cables?

Drives came out of a drive cage and case is a CM Stacker 830. I ditched a 12cm fan from the cage in the process so I'll be watching temps. The top drive (Hitachi 1TB) is currently reporting 42C and has been edging up very slowly even though unused. Room temp is 20C at the moment.

Have to admit, seek noise is much reduced. The idle spin though is that annoying hissy/raspy sound which I will never get rid of without an enclosure. It's seem it is the Seagate 1TB 7200.12 which is so damn noisy.

And yes, this thing will be considered extremely loud by spcr standards.