My current setup is a Seagate Barracuda IV 60Gb sitting in a 5.25" drive bay mounted in a Zalman heatpipe cooler. This was/is a noticable improvement from bare mounting the drive, but isn't enough.
If I let the HDD power down, I am shocked at how quiet my machine now is. It sits next to me on the desk, around 2 feet away and without the HDD on, all I can hear is a (very) faint whisper of air from the PSU. It's quite clear that the disk is by far the noisiest component I have.
I've identified three main points of noise that I want to address:
1) Mechanical noise. There is a distinct mid-range buzzing noise during idle. Not loud, not that annoying but noticable. Worse, seeks are still quite audible. I'd like to eliminate any idle (motor) noise and also seeks if possible.
2) Vibration. The Zalman mount, while a great improvement on bare mounting, is still clearly allowing some vibration from the drive unit to be conducted through to the case, where it seems to have a more low frequency humm or rumble. This is probably the worst offender.
3) Location. For various (physical) reasons, having my PC next to me on the desk is best for me. However, because the Zalman mount needs a 5.25" bay and these bays (like most cases) are at the top of the case, this means that the drive is mounted almost directly on the same level as my ears. I also think this works with the 5.25" drive cage to highlight the vibrational noise I hear.
What I'm looking for is a solution that will fix all of these issues on way or the other. I don't think suspension is sufficient because as I understand it, although it would most likely fix the vibration, it won't eliminate the mechanical noise. Hence, I think I am looking at some kind of enclosure here? Any suggestions?[/list]
