Oil/water filled drive enclosure idea

[MoJo-chan]

I've been trying to come up with the ultimate silent drive enclosure. The biggest problem seems to be that, the more you insulate noise, you more you insulate heat. Heat conveying foam does not seem to exist.

At first I was thinking about some kind of heatpipe system, but then I remembered oil. Transformer oil in particular. It's thick, sludgy and non-conductive.

My idea would be to put the HDD in some kind of enclosure, no bigger than the drive itself, made of metal. Really just to keep it clean. Then, place that inside a larger 5.25" bay sized enclosure, filled with oil or water. Maybe have some foam pads at the bottom to raise the inner enclosure up a bit and prevent it from resting on the bottom. Both oil and water transmit heat better than air.

The obvious problem here is that oil is messy, and water conductive. Either way, you would want a sealed inner enclosure to protect the drive.

So, I thought of gell packs. But gell packs don't seem to transmit heat that well. So, how about water or oil bags? The problem is finding a suitable bag, that will not leak or puncture, but which is then enough to allow efficient heat transmission. Condoms come to mind (oh god...) but perhaps some kind of waterblock might be feasable. A copper sandwich with a flexible (rubber?) middle.

Anyone care to brainstorm? Any idea, no matter how "out there"...

[qviri]

See http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 4398#14398

points 17 through 21.

[IsaacKuo]

I have also killed a hard drive attempting to use a water based silencing solution. (I won't bother to find a link to my thread discussing the fiasco on these forums.)

My eventual solution was to go with a 2.5" drive. Enclosing a 2.5" drive is so much more practical than anything with a 3.5" drive it isn't even funny...

I have tried out liquid cooling packs, which are physically similar to water bags. The most basic problem is that water conducts sound and vibrations VERY WELL. Never mind the heat conductivity, the point is moot if it doesn't do anything to absorb/isolate sound and vibration!

So, if I were to attempt a 3.5" drive silencer, I'd be thinking in terms of "ghetto watercooling". Here, the drive is mounted inside a box with a fan to provide air circulation within the box. This box is enclosed in very thick foam. A water tube is snaked through the foam to within the inner box. With sufficient snaking around within the foam, the water tube will not provide too much transmission of sound to the outside.

This solution would be very bulky and very complex, and a pain to maintain.

[MoJo-chan]

Thanks for the comments.

I suppose water does conduct sound very well. This then is not the solution. Water cooling a HDD seems pointless, you may as well just use heatpipes and a low speed fan.

[cotdt]

Try Uranium, they work much better. A 2.5" notebook drive enclosed in a layer of foam to stop virbation and then surrounded by a thick layer of uranium is very, very effective. It seems like the more density a material has, the better. My 80GB WD Scorpio used to sound like a helicoptor (20dBA), but now I can't even hear it with my ear next to it (negative infinity dB).

[StarfishChris]

I don't know, it sounds dangerous, but it might appeal to the case modders with UV tubes.

[alleycat]

Homebrew drive enclosure

[andywww]

IsaacKuo, if you're going to go watercooling, why not set up a proper waterblock for the hddrives? then you can place them in a very thick homemade enclosure, with no need for the complex system you describe. I mean, there are commercial hd waterblocks .

As in this article from way back:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article96-page1.html

[IsaacKuo]

Partly because direct contact means transmitting noise directly to the water, but mainly because I feel this whole endeavor only makes sense if you spend as little money as possible on it.

If you're actually willing to spend a modest amount of money, going with 2.5" simply makes more sense, IMO.