A week ago I finally performed elastic suspension on both my (old and noisy) HDDs. Quite happy about it, but I used standard rubbers from a sewing shop, and my wife already expressed concern about the longevity of the elastic under such heated conditions. Reading around here I see that her intuition has been true. People often report that such materials need frequent replacing. Already I worry if they haven't become weaker then what they were when I installed them.

So - has anyone found anything better than the stuff they have at sewing shops? Some kind of rubber that is heat-resistant and endures tension for an extended period of time?

I have, like many other people here at SPCR, used elastic cords. It should look something like this:

http://www.google.dk/imgres?q=elastic+c ... 9,r:11,s:0

Any sewing shop should be selling this and it should cost that much. (in DK, expensive place to by stuff, 1 m of cord costs <1 USD)

And 1m is the perfect length for suspending a hard drive in a 5.25" bay.

Stretch Magic is another option. Haven't tried it, but it's apparently strong and stretchy.

Well, yes, of course, and I have something similar. The question is - how long does it last? Does the cord not slacken or become brittle with age and heat? How often do you need to replace them?