2.5" HD Enclosures??

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:23 am

i was wondering if anyone knew of a 2.5" hard drive enclosure sort of like the silentdrive enclosers. somthing that will both decouple, and insulate noise and allow me to mount it inside a standard 3.5" drive bay in a computer.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:29 am

I'm curious about any product like this, myself. A while back, I pondered producing this sort of thing myself, but my experimentation didn't look promising. The 3.5" form factor simply isn't physically big enough to produce results to my own satisfaction.

My homebrew 2.5" enclosures are made out of PSP cases. They're cheap and highly effective, but the form factor is about the same as a 5.25" optical drive.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:46 am

i found a couple sites with "converter brackets" to put a 2.5" drive in a 3.5" bay.

http://www.addonics.com/products/io/aa25ide35.asp

http://www.mittoni.com.au/25-to-35-ide- ... -1296.html

http://www.amtrade.com/pc_mounting/note ... ingkit.htm

i was thinking of taking one of these, and then get the deluxe acoustipak:
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl. ... 48&CATID=6

and take one of those foam blocks they give you to put in an empty 3.5" bay and cut it out so that it would fit over/around a 2.5" drive that was mounted on one of those conversion brackets. and i could mount the 2.5" drive onto the bracket with a slim piece of rubber or rubber washers to isolate it from the bracket/drivebay.

but it would be nice if i could just buy a proffesional looking product that already did this.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:05 am

i just found this:

http://www.siliconacoustics.com/noisema ... lator.html

a novibes for 2.5" drives to fit in a 3.5" space.

i think this is the closest thing ive ever seen to what i want. it will definately decouple the drive and eliminate any vibration, but from the reviews ive read about the 2.5" drives i'm considering, the majority of the noise isnt from vibration, but rather the "whooshing" noise from the platters spinning. so im not quite sure how well this would work.

in any case, it is another 2.5" - 3.5" drive bay converter.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:21 am

Well, I personally find suspending a 2.5" drive to be entirely inadequate. The remaining whine is annoying, and the seeks are also audible (but I generally don't find seek noises too offensive).

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:28 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:Well, I personally find suspending a 2.5" drive to be entirely inadequate. The remaining whine is annoying, and the seeks are also audible (but I generally don't find seek noises too offensive).

I am suprised.
On the contrary, 2.5" drives are usuallly quiet enough that they do not even need suspending / damping.
And if you still want to do it, their smaller size makes it a lot easier to suspend and build some sound barrier around.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:03 pm

jjr wrote: I am suprised.
On the contrary, 2.5" drives are usuallly quiet enough that they do not even need suspending / damping.
And if you still want to do it, their smaller size makes it a lot easier to suspend and build some sound barrier around.

every review ive seen spcr do on the 2.5" drives im considering they state that vibrations is almost non existant. so thats why i doubt that decoupling them will do anything if at all. but reviews do state that you can still hear the "whoosh" sound of air. which sound dampening works very well to reduce/remove. along with the noise from seeks n such

Steve_Y · Post by **Steve_Y** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:16 pm

What I did was wrap my 2.5" drive in some spare Acoustipack sound damping and then suspend it in a 3.5" bay using elastic bands. That removed any vibration and helped to block the idle and seek noise. Even if I put my head within inches of my PC's case I can't hear the 2.5" drive at all, just a gentle hum from my low speed fans. I was worried about heat at first, but 5400RPM laptop drives don't seem to need any airflow to run reliably.

The ease of silencing 2.5" drives is the best thing about them. Even with suspending, damping and special enclosures I don't think that even the best 3.5" drives can match them for silence, not without running too hot due to lack of airflow.

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:35 am

Aris wrote:
jjr wrote: I am suprised.
On the contrary, 2.5" drives are usuallly quiet enough that they do not even need suspending / damping.
And if you still want to do it, their smaller size makes it a lot easier to suspend and build some sound barrier around.
every review ive seen spcr do on the 2.5" drives im considering they state that vibrations is almost non existant. so thats why i doubt that decoupling them will do anything if at all. but reviews do state that you can still hear the "whoosh" sound of air. which sound dampening works very well to reduce/remove. along with the noise from seeks n such

Hum ... I have several 2.5" drives, inside my laptop and in external enclosures and none of them as any audible whine ....
It really takes to lay the ear on the laptop or the enclosure to hear them.

I did have some though with previous ones on my laptop ... just before the HD actually died.

Maybe a good solution would be to use one of those external enclosures and strip it off to use it internally (suspended for unstance) ?
That would be a first sound barrier in addition to keeping some cooling.

rockstar_not · Post by **rockstar_not** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:11 pm

I want a 3.5" 7200 rpm 8MB or greater cache drive for home recording, but I read in the reviews that the 2.5" drives are quieter.

I bought an Antec Sonata case on a good deal ($65 after rebate).

Now the hard drives are next and I'm not sure what to buy.

I need the big cache of the 3.5" 7200 drives, but lots of bad reviews here on those types of drives.

Will the laptop drives be better?

-Scott

Jonas/Viper · Post by **Jonas/Viper** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 8:22 am

rockstar_not wrote:I want a 3.5" 7200 rpm 8MB or greater cache drive for home recording, but I read in the reviews that the 2.5" drives are quieter.
[...]
I need the big cache of the 3.5" 7200 drives, but lots of bad reviews here on those types of drives.

Will the laptop drives be better?

There are 5400 rpm 2.5" drives with 8 MB cache. The speed is slightly lower than 7200 rpm drives, but I don't think it should be a problem, especially if you buy one of the faster drives. I don't know how much drive speed affects specifically recording performance, but I guess the speed of a fast 5400 rpm drive would be enough.

2.5" HD Enclosures??

2.5" HD Enclosures??

2.5" or 3.5" for quietness, for music recording wo

Re: 2.5" or 3.5" for quietness, for music recordin