Suspend entire cage, or just the drive?

sundevil_1997 · Post by **sundevil_1997** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:57 am

I discovered last night that my HD cage is removable. Funny thing is that it made me happy because of all the space it gave me to place quiet fans and ducts and filters and.....

But anyway. I've only got one HD in this system, and the cage has room for 3. Should I just suspend the entire cage with the HD hard mounted in it, or take the drive out altogether, get rid of the cage, and mount the HD free floating? The only advantage of keeping the HD in the cage that I can think of is the heat-sink nature of the cage, and thus I won't need to make aluminum heat sinks to attach to the sides of the HD. But would there be noticeable vibration noise if I kept it in the cage, even if the cage is not attached to the rest of the case??

Thanks.

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue May 17, 2005 9:59 am

What case are we talking bout here..?

sundevil_1997 · Post by **sundevil_1997** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:03 am

nici wrote:What case are we talking bout here..?

Hehe...sorry for not including that info, but I have no idea. It is your basic generic case. It's got an upper drive cage (which cannot be removed) for 3 external 5 1/4" drives, then attached to the bottom of that is the 3 1/2" drive cage, which has 1 external drive (the front panel has it pre-formed only for a floppy drive) and 2 internals. Other than that, there's nothing else on the front-inside of the case.

If I suspend the entire cage, it'll probably be hanging from the bottom of the upper larger cage, with supports to make sure it doesn't swing and hit anything. If I do just the drive...well, I'm not really sure where I'll do that. I'd do it in one of the 5 1/4 drive areas, but my CDR and Fan controller occupy two of those, so there's not be enough clearance for a hanging drive, I think. Plus getting a fan to blow over it would be problematic.

Thanks for any help, though. I can post pictures of the case later tonight, but really I'm just looking for a more generic answer of either 1) The drive should be isolated from ALL metal for best results, or 2) The drive can be mounted directly to metal so long as THAT metal is isolated from the rest of the case.

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:41 am

People have suspended drives in their cages before (I think burcakb did it in one of his systems) with no problems. Since the hard drive is going to be screwed to the cage, they'll act as one, and suspending the cage means no vibration. (Plus, you get the benefit of conduction throughout the cage.)

sundevil_1997 · Post by **sundevil_1997** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:59 pm

StarfishChris wrote:People have suspended drives in their cages before (I think burcakb did it in one of his systems) with no problems. Since the hard drive is going to be screwed to the cage, they'll act as one, and suspending the cage means no vibration. (Plus, you get the benefit of conduction throughout the cage.)

Ok, I'll go for suspending the entire cage. That way, I think I can get by without dedicating a fan for the drive, and also if I ever add more drives, the system doesn't need to be changed....just bolt 'em in.

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Wed May 18, 2005 8:14 am

I placed the cage on a thick block of foam, and then tied the cage down to the floor of the case through some holes I drilled. That way you don't need to worry about the drive moving around.

sundevil_1997 · Post by **sundevil_1997** » Wed May 18, 2005 9:06 am

alleycat wrote:I placed the cage on a thick block of foam, and then tied the cage down to the floor of the case through some holes I drilled. That way you don't need to worry about the drive moving around.

I kinda did the opposite. I taped foam to the top of the cage, then tied it to the bottom of the upper cage with elastic. Barring picking it up and dropping it, it's not going anywhere.

Curiously, though, I DID get overtemp warnings from DTemp. It was getting over 45 deg C. I have the intake fan blowing on it, or at least blowing TOWARDS it. And when I first got the warning, I took the side off the case, and I STILL got some warnings. Oh well, time to find some more fans.

yeha · Post by **yeha** » Wed May 18, 2005 9:24 am

i just suspended a 3-drive cage (generic case) containing just an sp1614n with bungee cords under the 5.25" bays. there are no vibration issues caused by the cage and temps are 4 degrees better than suspending just the drive alone. the cage acts like a pretty lacklustre heatsink, but it's better than none at all for me. it was much easier for me to suspend the cage with all its holes than the bare drive.