Nexus Drive-A-Way vs SmartDrive 2002C

AndrewD · Post by **AndrewD** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:42 pm

Has anyone tried both of these enclosures? I'm wanting to purchase one for my Maxtor DM10 200Gb, but can't decide which to try...

The Nexus looks like it might be more effective for silencing, but not as good for keeping the temp's down, as the contact with the drive is limited to those thermal pads on the lid. But my drive currently tops at 38degC, so if the enclosure pushes it up a few deg's, that shouldn't be a problem.

Any thoughts?

(I posted my current quiet 3000B/A64 based rig to the Gallery a couple of months back. It's going great, but I now want to quieten it a little further. The 2 prominent noise sources are the HDD and VF700Cu fan, so I'm just starting to look for the best options for improving those 2 areas).

Cheers.

Steve_Y · Post by **Steve_Y** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 11:54 pm

I haven't tried the SmartDrive 2002C, but the Nexus is definitely a better silencer than the two other enclosures I've tried, a SilentDrive and a SilentMaxx HD-Silencer. Maybe if there's a comparison between either of those enclosures and the SmartDrive that'll help you decide.

The Nexus Drive-A-Way hasn't increased my drive's temperature, in fact temperature was reduced slightly when inside the enclosure. The SmartDrive may be a better cooler, but when your drive isn't even reaching 40C I don't think heat is something you really need to worry about.

AndrewD · Post by **AndrewD** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:03 am

Thanks Steve. I read your posts on the Nexus and SilentMaxx, and these are really helpful.

The Nexus and SmartDrive both seem like good options, but I think I'll give the Nexus a go. Being in Australia, it's going to be fairly expensive, so I'm just hoping it will be worth it! As the DM10 is fairly quiet already, perhaps there isn't that much scope for improvement. Problem too is that I can't get AAM mode enabled with the NForce4 board. Anyway, once I get hold of the Nexus, I'll post back with my findings.

Now the next challenge is replacement of the VF700. The VF700 cools well, but the noisy fan is annoying. Looks like the only 2 options (in terms of availability and what will physically fit with the XP-120 and the NB47J) are the ZM80D-HP and the TT Schooner. I'll probably go with the 80D but am not sure if it will keep the 800XL cool enough. I'll report back on that one too.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:30 am

get the zalman fan bracket, or some screws that will slide into the grove meant for the optional 92mm fan. Use a 92mm nexus or somesuch to cool of the Zalman HP.

slimeballzz · Post by **slimeballzz** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 10:07 pm

Hey Steve can you post the actual dimensions of the Drive-A-Way please.

I wasn't able to find it anywhere including Nexus's site.

Steve_Y · Post by **Steve_Y** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 10:12 am

slimeballzz wrote:Hey Steve can you post the actual dimensions of the Drive-A-Way please.

I wasn't able to find it anywhere including Nexus's site.

It's roughly 20.5cm x 14.5cm x 4cm (length x width x depth), add an extra 1cm to the length if you use the thumbscrews. Quite large for an internal enclosure, with the thumbscrews it's about 2.5cm longer than my internal CD-RW drive.

IonYz · Post by **IonYz** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 10:33 pm

Wonder if SPCR can do an official review of the Nexus drive-a-way? If it does keep things quiet I may take the Raptor out of my Power Mac.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:30 pm

I'm digging this one up.

AndrewD, can you share your experience with the Nexus Drive-a-Way? Perhaps you have elsewhere but this seemed like a good place to ask. Or anyone else that has tried one, how'd it work out?

RachelG · Post by **RachelG** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:05 pm

I keep forgetting to post my experiences with the Nexus-Drive-a-way. I bought one a couple of weeks ago. I'm afraid I have no previous experience of drive enclosures so I can't give any comparisons.

Anyway, the background is that I have a Samsung SP1214 drive in a Sonata case. The drive is pretty quiet, but when hard-mounted it caused significant vibration noise. I then transferred it to sit on sorbothane at the bottom of the case and that got rid of the vibration problem.

The Nexus looked very smart when it arrived, with lots of connectors for every eventuality. It was easy enough to set up.

Results: -

Hard drive whine: very effective at eliminating this.
Vibration: a disaster! Even sitting on the sorbothane I could hear vibration related noise. The only way to eliminate it was to use something very soft - sitting it on a carwashing sponge worked, but wasn't very practical!
Heat: Idle temperature of hard drive (measured using Speedfan) prior to enclosure - 27degreesC. Temperature of hard drive after enclosure - 35degreesC. (I'm not at all sure that Speedfan measures these temperatures correctly, but they're consistent and at least give a relative idea of heat.)

All in all, I wasn't terribly impressed, and the Drive-a-way is now sitting in its box again. Possibly good for a low vibration drive (?) but no good for me

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:10 pm

Thank you very much for posting. I think I'm going to make a homemade enclosure like alleycat on this forum did, with an aluminum enclosure and cool packs. It'd be cheaper to do for two drives. I'm just curious as to how much these enclosures work on already quiet drives. I have a Western Digital 80gb and 120gb drives, and they aren't loud at all. They're suspended with Stretch Magic and I used Hitachi tools to turn the AAM all the way to the lowest setting (it was either all the way low or all the way high for these drives) and I havent seen a decrease in performace, and seek noise dropped dramatically.

I only have three other fans in my system, a Nexus 120mm on my SI-97 at 7v, the stock 3700bqe antec fan as exhaust at 5v, and a Nexus 92mm at 7v ghetto modded to my stock Antec PSU that came with the 3700 (it works very well.) I can't hear these fans over the gentle idle of the hard drrives. Eliminating the hard drive noise, even though it is very slight already, is one of my goals.

More experiences are welcome!

AndrewD · Post by **AndrewD** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 5:02 am

Badger - sorry for not responding to your question. I've only just gotten around to revisiting this thread...

I've been procrastinating on the drive enclosure and haven't purchased one yet

. The more I read on the Nexus, the less sure I am about it. I'm now thinking of trying the Smartdrive 2002c instead. Seems like it will keep the temp's more under control and hopefully still quieten my HDD to some extent.

Has anyone since been able to do a direct comparison of the Nexus and the SmartDrive??

RaptorZX3 · Post by **RaptorZX3** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 10:42 pm

AndrewD wrote:Badger - sorry for not responding to your question. I've only just gotten around to revisiting this thread...

I've been procrastinating on the drive enclosure and haven't purchased one yet . The more I read on the Nexus, the less sure I am about it. I'm now thinking of trying the Smartdrive 2002c instead. Seems like it will keep the temp's more under control and hopefully still quieten my HDD to some extent.

Has anyone since been able to do a direct comparison of the Nexus and the SmartDrive??

anyone?

i'm looking for a "hard disk quieting solution" other than suspending the hard disk with clothing elastics. suspension doesn't cut the "rumble" it's doing sometimes though, so maybe this enclosure solution will take care of this AND the vibrations too, without heating the hard disk

Sizzle · Post by **Sizzle** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:43 am

I have a SmartDrive 2002, not the C one though. It really killed the whine from my Samsung's (Nidec). Seeks are much quiter, but you can still hear them. I have a CM Stacker 830, it's not a quiet case, but with the SmartDrives, I'm happy with the job they did killing the whine which was really my major noise.

RaptorZX3 · Post by **RaptorZX3** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 12:56 pm

do the SmartDrive 2002/2002c support SATA?

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 1:29 pm

RaptorZX3 wrote:do the SmartDrive 2002/2002c support SATA?

Yes.

RaptorZX3 · Post by **RaptorZX3** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 1:32 pm

the Drive-A-Way is a bit cheaper than the SmartDrive 2002c though, since the SmartDrive is imported from Japan, it's a bit more expensive. but the Drive-A-Way seem to be as good as the SmartDrive.

so both do the job very well?

nici · Post by **nici** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:16 pm

I dont have any experience with the SmartDrive, but i wont recommend the nexus. it didnt do much for muffling the sound and temps went way too high.. Having massive amounts of airflow over the enclosure didnt help, wich means the heat isnt transferred from the drive to the enclosure properly.
It´s also about 2" longer than a regular 5,25" device wich might interfere with the mobo in some cases like it did in mine.

Spend a little more and get the SmartDrive, i have yet to see negative comments aout that one. people just say it lowers both temps and noise, wich seems like a good thing

Im currently using a homebrew enclosure alleycat style, works better than the commercial enclosures i´ve tried wich included the mCubed thing and the nexus among some others. No experience with the smartdrive though, it isnt even available in Finland..

RaptorZX3 · Post by **RaptorZX3** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:17 pm

but i've seen quick reviews and a review of the Nexus Drive-A-Way and they say it's good...

my hard disk mainly do vibrations, and sometimes a little bit of noise.

the way i'm gonna put it in my case is on top of my dvd-writer, there are 2 available slots there, i'll take one and leave the other one for the heat to dissipate.

geez.....spending a lot of money for a hard disk compartment because it's doing vibrations and a lil bit noisy sometimes...i gotta find a job real soon, cos right now i'm trying to sell of videogames stuff to have a bit more money...

OOT: btw, i've found that if i remove my plastic guard for the top slot, the rear exhaust fan of my SmartPower 2.0 stops after a while, because it cool down in the power supply.

RaptorZX3 · Post by **RaptorZX3** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:28 pm

so the SmartDrive 2002c is the best for hard disk vibrations, noises and heat?