Thanks for the input. Maybe the sandbox approach is worth a try. It seems wasteful to buy this old box (Pentium 166) a new hard drive, especially since it could only partition 32GB of it, iirc. Also, I'd have to stick to IDE, limiting forward compatibility. If this box ever croaks, I'd like to repl...

Hello, I purchased a 200GB Western Digital (WD2000JS) hard drive. I just installed Dtemp, and it's reporting it at 46 degrees celcius, while my WD Raptor 36GB in the bay below is reporting 36 degrees. It seems a little high When I actually put my hand on the bottom and top of both drives, one doesn...

An interesting thread was just posted along these lines: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=28416 It refers to and discusses an article that reports actual measurements of hard drive power consumption for quite a few drive models. It also discusses why this is a better measure of heat-...

I was curious as to how tight the elastic was in your suspension. It didn't look like there was any droop due to the weight of the drive. As you can imagine, if the suspension still has some elastic "give" in it when the drive is suspended, it will do a better job of isolating the drive's vibrations...

It's not hypothetical. I have five HDDs today plus I want to upgrade so the cooling is not enough anymore. I will need to build something better. Of course, the idea was to keep it quiet too... :( In my opinion, this isn't impossible, but to quiet so many drives will necessarily involve some smart ...

This may be what you're looking for: http://www.mcmaster.com/ctlg/loadpage.asp?pagenum=852&descid=38112&term=Vibration+Damping+Grommet Specifically, the "Inside Diameter Ribbed Grommets". For hard drives, I think the part number to use would be 9311K138 (5/32" inside diameter, for use with standard ...

I think the bottom line is, many of the most recent hard drives are pretty quiet and reliable. There are undoubtedly exceptions, but I think you can find quiet and reliable drives from Seagate, WD, Samsung, Hitachi, and Maxtor. If you're looking for an extremely quiet system, i would bet that, no ma...

thanks a lot for the help and quick reply :D if i suspend the hard drive using the 5.25 bays, do i have to worry about the drive moving around when i move the computer? will the drive slide out from the elastics if it is turned on its side while i'm carrying it? is there an easy way to prevent that...

So reducing the clock speed would reduce power draw Yes by "increasing resistance" No - resistance is essentially constant. The mechanism a reduced clock CPU draws lower power is to do with lower current draw. You're both correct. This resistance (I would say theoretical, but that's not correct, it...

Sound-absorbing foam, if you have room for it in your case, isn't terribly expensive. Mcmaster-Carr sells 1" sound dampening foam--flame-resistant, no less--for $9.25 in 1' x 54" cuts (catalog page 3270).

Damptek sheets and foams are a little more expensive, but also well within your budget.

Well, I for one have had no problem with multiple recent WD "SE" Caviar drives, and in my opinion they are very quiet, solid performers and decently priced. After having nothing but good luck with them, I'm sold. The key is to get one of the recent drives (from the last year or so), as WD went to Fl...

At this point, I'm not using RAID at all -- just counting on smartd to detect potential trouble and shut down the system :) I hope you have backups, because by the time smartd detects a problem your data can already be corrupted. Also smart only predicts some 50-60% of possible failures. Incrementa...

The only problem I've seen thus far is that the Arctic Cooling fans aren't available from retailers, at least not yet.

Did they give you any time frame for availability, jmke?

I have become an (almost) 100% user of Seagate drives. I have 4 reasons, 5-year warranty, faults are identifiable (take note WD), very low faliure rates compared to the competition (take note Maxtor, Hitachi, WD), noise. Thus far, I've been pretty much an exclusive WD user, due to happiness with pr...

Thank you for the review!

The Arctic Fan 12 does very well indeed, especially considering the recommended price of $10.00.

Do nVidia chipset have any issues with Linux? If not then you cna get the MSI K8NGM2-FID if it is sold in the UK. It has a bracket for TV-out so you can place that where the PCI-E graphics card would normally go. As I understand it, NVidia just released drivers for the 6150 (K8NGM2 chipset) for Lin...

I'm running a file server/print server at home using Linux, Samba and CUPS. The system hardware is an old Dell Pentium 100 machine. The motherboard and processor and Power Supply are original, though the power supply was recently cleaned and the fan remounted using rubber grommets from Radio Shack. ...

Just to clarify, a new drive won't help with cable management. Your motherboard doesn't have SATA, so you'll have to get an IDE drive with the same kind of cables as your Deskstar. It depends a bit...if he is currently using IDE ribbon cables, he could replace them with round IDE cables, for a smal...

By the way, if you're looking for a sound card for not a lot of money and top-quality audio, I'd consider the M-audio Revolution cards (either the 5.1 or 7.1 cards). They can be had for $75-$100 and their sound quality is second to none, as far as sound cards are concerned. Unless you're looking to ...

From the conclusion of that review: Cons: Only pulls air out, can’t blow I don't understand this comment at all. Any fan that can suck, by definition must blow, otherwise where is all the air going? A fan is a device for sucking in air from one side and blowing it out the other; it's a complete non...

I've tested a bunch of ball/hydro/sleeve bearing fans, but no ceramic bearing fans Far be it for me to be sceptical before the results are in, but it is hard to see what properties ceramic may have that enable it to give quieter operation than a sleeve bearing fan (say, a Yate Loon or a Nexus) whic...

Circulation Optimized Fan Blades High Airflow High Static Pressure Long Lifetime 6 Years Warranty The Fluid Dynamic Bearing offers a unique 400'000 h MTTF at 40°C. Therefore we grant a unique 6 years warranty. All have open corners according to the pictures. Any comments/feedback? :) Too bad these ...

I think that would be another interesting experiment: copper vs aluminum homemade U-channel hard drive heat sinks. Theoretically the copper U-channel heatsink should win, all other things being equal, as copper has a much higher thermal conductivity value than aluminium. Thermal Conductivity League...

I recently relocated a Western Digital drive from the top 5-1/4" drive bays in a mini-tower to the bottom of the case. The drive is mounted using small-diameter bungee cord suspension, but it's mounted in the path of the case fan airflow and has aluminum channel heatsinks attached to the sides. Typi...

get a new hard drive :lol: it's gonna be damn hard (if not impossible) to make that silent. I agree with this. You can use a combination of suspension with thick aluminum plates for parts of the drive for heat sinking and sound absorbing foam to surround the rest, or even build a sub-enclosure out ...

I have seen on many sites, reviews on drives that claim to be good performance or good in terms of low noise. Now I am in need of a drive that does both. I do sound recording and mixing and I am building a system from scratch. I will be requireing 2 to 3 drives depending on whether raid array will ...

grounding electronics is to protect the equipment from differences of potential energy. its not really for EMI or heat dissapation, although these may be beneficial side effects of grounding electronics. I agree with this, for the most part. However, when you're talking about electronic devices tha...

Hi Kythe, technically speaking you're correct. I also agree that a grounding strap won't hurt anyone, but I'm not sure how much it helps. I think the the amount of EMI coming from a HDD (multilayer PCB, effect of casing) is not an issue. The purpose of screwing the HDD to the case is more to help w...

Hi, no need really. The drive is grounded by the HDD power connector well enough. Although it's true that drives have a good DC path to ground through the Molex power connector, the power connection probably doesn't provide a great low-impedance AC path to ground. It may not matter all that much, b...

If you're worried, you could add heatsinks to the sides of the drive, made of u-channel aluminum from your local hardware store, to improve cooling. It probably is wise, though, to check out the maximum temperature and/or fire rating for the foam you're using. Most (e.g. silicone foam) will probabl...