Suspending HDDs in a Silverstone LC16M

damien · Post by **damien** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:02 pm

Hello all,

I am looking at a media centre/file server and this case seems to fit the bill, as far as looks, cooling and space is concerned.

However, I would just like to know if anyone has suspended HDDs in this case -I am a bit of a convert to HDD suspension after the results in my Antec Solo in my desktop PC.

How many HDDs did you manage, and what were the results like?

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:51 pm

you might want to look into cases like 3 or 4U rackmount cases. they're fairly roomy, but you'll have to get creative when it comes to drive suspension. a media center PC is not really oriented for space conservation, as it puts as much stuff in as little space as possible so it fits in places.

rackmount servers usually have room for several hard drives, but you'll be able to use the space to suspend. 4U rackmount cases are fairly large, 1U is far too small for the job, and 2U wouldn't help much. 3U and 4U are your best bet, 4U will be better than 3U, but it depends on how many hard drives you're using.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:33 am

You can also try looking into Sorbothane blocks. I have an OrigenAE X11 HTPC case that has no room for suspension without severe modification, which I'm not willing to do. The included drive cage disassembles and is hard to put together, but has little foam pieces for the drive to rest on, which might work well if there were something else holding the cage and HDDs together, but instead of screws on the bottom side (HDD are oriented vertically on their sides) the are posts that go in the screw holes and they rattle something fiece.

So what I did was remove the entire drive cage, take a set of 5.25"-to-3.5" adapters and put that in it's place to create a type of platform, and place sorbothane block on top. Then by resting the HDD on the Sorbothane, it will reduce the vibrations significantly. Not quite as good as suspension, but probably better than foam as it's more stable (the Sorbothane is slightly sticky so the drives won't move especially after they get hot and cool off).

I got some for free by calling Sorbothane directly and asking for some samples to try to reduce the vibrations on our instruments created by our production line. They sent me a variety of harnesses (durometer). I used 40 durometer Sorbothane, which is the softest they sent me (they might go lower, but it's pretty spongy as it is).

Here's the result. It's hard to see but you can sort of see the bracket the drive is resting on on the far right, and the fan (80mm Y/L @ 5v) right below it. FYI, the drive is a WD5000KS and is very quiet.

skj · Post by **skj** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:50 am

Thanks for sharing that pic. Once that case is full of hardware, there's less room for getting creative with suspensions than I thought.

jhhoffma, how are your hard drive temps with that setup? If I'm correct, there's an 80mm vent right under your drive. Do the Sorbothane blocks restrict it?

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:04 am

IIRC, after a couple of hours at idle or watching a movie, it gets up to ~37C. Yes, there is a slow speed 80mm YateLoon D80SM12 under it, but there are no problems with the gap. The default HDD cage for the case is mounted on 4 stud (like mobo mounts) that are about 2-3" long. The HDD cage then mounts onto that. I screwed the drive bay adapters to those studs, making two platforms, then put the sorbothane on them and set the drive on top.

You can't really see the sorbothane in the pic above, you can see the fan which has about 1" of space between it and the HDD above. You can also see the bracket if you follow the blue SATA cable from the mobo to where it disappears under the drive. The sorbothane blocks sit between the bracket and the HDD.