Best internal enclosure for "spinning noise" probl

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:43 pm

Hello,

Want to get rid of the "idle" HDD noise, I suppose thats the HDD spinning noise ...

I have 3 x 500GB WD GreenPower, but still, as everything in my comp is 0dB, can hear the HDDs working (spinning I suppose, not seeking) at 1m and it makes me .... It's just that hi freq voice, grrr....

So is there any good internal enclosure that could help me with the spinning noise?

As I've read in some other post, Scythe Quiet Drive is not any good for spinning noise...

Any other recommendations?

TNX

lm · Post by lm » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:11 pm

Lining the whole case with sound dampening material will help.

Maybe you could consolidate into one large drive instead of 3 medium sized ones?

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:27 pm

Well, I do have Be quiet Noise Absorber Kit on the entire left and right side of the case (top and bottom are almost impossible to do), but still the "idle noise" is still present and it makes me nuts, 'couse it's the only noise I hear from computer ...

One large enclosure for 3drives is a good idea, but I gues there is no one to buy in stores, so the only way is to make it my self, which is generally a time problem. And no experience problem as well ...

By the way, are there any instructions or tips on how to make a good HDD enclosure and what materials to use?

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:35 pm

Hi, first thing do you have the drives suspended or otherwise soft-mounted? If not the the spinning vibrations are transfered in to the computer case which acts like a speaker cone.
If you do have your drives soft mounted and its still too loud then I recomend a Scythe Quiet Drive. I have a WD5000AAKS in one and I find it to be very good at reducing the noise. The idle (spinning) noise is now so low I don't notice it and yes the rest of my PC can be very quiet and I live in the country. The seek noise is also reduced to a faint ticking, but I have it resting on foam so noise / vibration not passed to the PC case and that helps too.
Good luck, Seb

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:54 pm

The HDD drives are not suspended in any way. Classical mount in CoolerMaster Wave Master case.

As the WD GP has almost no vibrations, I don't see the need of suspending them and on the other hand, I don't really like the hole suspended idea, it just doesn't feel safe to me, as I move the case few times a week.

So the only option left is enclosure I guess ...

As I'm looking arround, Smart Drive 2002 is a verygood choice, but its hard to get and VERY expensive, arround 80â‚¬ for piece, whic with 3 drives is little too much.
I see that Scythe QUIET DRIVE SQD-1000 is less expensive, arround 40â‚¬, but does anyone has any experience with it?
In SilentPcReviews I read about Scythe Silent Drive, the older version which didn't do so good at silecing idle noise as it did with vibrating issues, but maybe this new enclosure does better job with idle noise, anyone?

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:55 pm

Tomson wrote:The HDD drives are not suspended in any way. Classical mount in CoolerMaster Wave Master case.

As the WD GP has almost no vibrations, I don't see the need of suspending them and on the other hand, I don't really like the hole suspended idea, it just doesn't feel safe to me, as I move the case few times a week.

Try temporarily sitting the drives on some soft foam to gauge how much noise there is from the vibrations - I'm betting it's rather more than you think. Do you have enough spare 5.25" bays to build a suspended cage (drives bolted to cage, cage softmounted/suspended from 5.25" rails) to house the drives? That could be a cheap and secure solution.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:51 am

I have three 5.25" bays free and as I have 3HDDs, thats should do it.

I've been reading a lot about this new Scythe QUIET DRIVE SQD-1000 and it looks it's a pretty good enclosure, so I guess I'll buy one and see how it does, and if it helps a lot, I'll get two more for all my HDDs.

jeepescu · Post by **jeepescu** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:59 pm

I installed a Scythe Quiet Drive in my P182 to silence a noisy 320Gb Seagate.
The results were more than satisfying, I simply can not hear my drive anymore, all the vibrations are gone, the unnerving humming is history.
And, as a bonus gift, the disk is now cooler than before!
I can only say that I was very impressed by this item, and, most probably, from now on, all my drives will be housed in this enclosure.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:16 pm

Nice, I'm glad I'm hearing this, as I already made an order and will be getting one in a week ...

One question: As I have 3 HDDs, if I put the one that runs OS in a Quiet BOX, and the other two HDDs are shut down (spin down) by VISTA, is that the same as they weren't connected to computer at all, or do they still make any noise (sound), even if in sleeping mode ?

Immortals · Post by **Immortals** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:29 pm

Tomson wrote:I have three 5.25" bays free and as I have 3HDDs, thats should do it.

I've been reading a lot about this new Scythe QUIET DRIVE SQD-1000 and it looks it's a pretty good enclosure, so I guess I'll buy one and see how it does, and if it helps a lot, I'll get two more for all my HDDs.

I'd be very interested in what your opinion of this drive enclosure is is. After fan modding my Seasonic my GP idle noise is now the loudest part of my system.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:55 pm

I'm expecting QuietDrive to arrive any day now, so I'll report on how it performs for me.

By the way, how come you did fan modding on your Seasonic? (I have S12II 650W and it's dead silent without mdding), you have an older version ?

Immortals · Post by **Immortals** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:20 pm

Tomson wrote: By the way, how come you did fan modding on your Seasonic? (I have S12II 650W and it's dead silent without mdding), you have an older version ?

I'm part of the lunatic fringe that calls everything loud

.... Nah it was actually reasonably quiet but it was the loudest part of my system. It was a 2 year old revision 1 so it may have been louder than when i first got it. Now my GP (which is the quietest desktop drive i've ever heard) is the loudest.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:25 am

Oh, I see ... My S12II650 in now 3 month old, so still totaly silent. So you say that in time it will get louder? Is it easy to change the fan or is it a lot of work with it?

With WD GP I have the same problem. Everything in my computer is 0dB so these three WD GP dirves makes me go nuts ... I hope Quiet Drive will do a major difference.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:51 am

Will you be getting any airflow around them? 3 enclosures and whatever optical drives all crammed up in the top where airflow is usually poor, these things might end up cooking each other.

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:22 am

Tomson wrote:Everything in my computer is 0dB

You run your computer completly fanless? Impressive.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:54 pm

0dB from where I'm sitting.

(about 1m from computer)

And ofcourse it was ment "0dB"

There will actually be no airflow arround them. I figured, as the Quiet Drive at the same time cools the drive and with WD GP, which are one of the coolest drives, there will be no need of airflow arround them ... Am I wrong?

m^2 · Post by **m^2** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:40 am

Tomson wrote:0dB from where I'm sitting. (about 1m from computer)

And ofcourse it was ment "0dB"

There will actually be no airflow arround them. I figured, as the Quiet Drive at the same time cools the drive and with WD GP, which are one of the coolest drives, there will be no need of airflow arround them ... Am I wrong?

That's not 0, just below ambient

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:14 am

I know, I know ...

I just wanted to say that from 1m I cant hear anything from computer, except damn HDDs ...

So how about airflow, will there be a problem if 3xHDD in Quiet Drive on the top of the case ?

Xuestor · Post by **Xuestor** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:26 am

I have an 1tb WDGP in Scythe QD, and it's simply dead silent from 1m. I have it placed on soft foam at the intake vent, to get a little air running around it. it stays solid at 35c. Since you're gonna mount the discs in your case, I would suggest the Scythe enclosure, as the vibrations probably is the problem here. Although the WDGP discs have little vibration, there still are some of it, and with direct contact to the case, this will amplify the sound.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:42 am

Tomson wrote:The HDD drives are not suspended in any way. Classical mount in CoolerMaster Wave Master case.

That's your problem. You have an aluminum case and three hard mounted hard drives. The relatively high pitched humming you hear is your case vibrating from the spindle rotation.

I suggest you decouple your hard drives from your case, or buy a better case. You may not have to use Quiet Drives altogether.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:32 am

Well, it is cheaper to buy 3xQD than replace my CASE with onother. I bought this case 3years ago for 200â‚¬, now I wouldnt get 50â‚¬, so its a waste of money.

And I have recently changed all the vents on the case with Noctua vents 3x90mm, which I couldn't use on new case.

So its 3xQD for me. I just hope that without airflow over the drives, the QuietDrives will keep the temperatures at normal levels ...

toki_c · Post by **toki_c** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:18 am

That's quite a MISTAKE Thomson... If only you have read the basis on SPCR, you should know that 1: get (thick) steel case in order to minimize the transmission of hard drive vibrations. In other words, no Aluminum case especially for someone like you who has "0dB" components as you said severals times. 2: suspend the hards drives. And you hardly mounted 3 hard drives in a Aluminum case! Sorry to say, are you kidding?! Did you actually read SPCR's basis?! Permit me to highly doubt about it. 3: material dumping for your case.

So, to sum up, even if you actually have "SPCR's champion" 3.5" hard drives or the quietest 3.5" hard drive out there, which annihilates the need to get a 2.5" notebook hard drive for the OS (you can still check out SPCR's reviews if not done), hard mounting 3 hdds in a Aluminum case is a major blow, a HUGE n00b blow i should say, to your "0dB" rig.

Kristian · Post by **Kristian** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:44 am

While it may take a little more effort an aluminium case can be made reasonably quiet.

I have an aluminium case too (Lian Li V1000). I have put the Quiet Drives in the bottom of the case on top of each other. (with 8mm soft rubber feet between the enclosures and the lower enclosure and the case). This works very well.

So I am very happy with the Scythe Quiet Drive enclosures. They cannot drown out the seek noise from my noisy Seagates completely though. But no spinning noise escapes from them.

The QD enclosures also have a rubber decoupling to fit them in the 5.25 inch bays. I have not used the enclosures like that but it should be much better than your hardmounted drives.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:02 pm

toki_c: I did read the basis on SPCR and I know that the case I own isn't apropriate to build quietest comp possible. But as I bought this case 2/3 years ago, I wasn't planing to build noisless computer. That idea came few month ago, as I was changing some components. So I was stuck with the case but other components were replaced with low noise ones. MY idea was to build as silence computer as I could, buy as I have replaced some components, I really began to be bothered by another more loud ones. At the end I replaced everything except my case, which still I'm not prepared to replace. So, as the only problem remains HDD's I really believe that QuietDrives will make HDD's less noisy, and if noise level goes to 50%, I will be happy. I am aware that with this case I will never have totaly silent computer. I will try that in a few years, maybe with Antec 180/182 ...

michaelklachko · Post by **michaelklachko** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:19 pm

I have Lian Li PC-2100+ case, and 250GB and 750GB WD drives both in QD enclosures, sitting on foam inside the case. Unfortunately I hear plenty of vibration. Not sure why this is happening, the enclosures are isolated from any hard surfaces. I guess my best option at this point would be to suspend them.
Where can I find some instruction/best practices/examples of HD suspension inside a case? Thank you.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:25 pm

You'll find a bunch of examples in these stickys:
HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!
HDD vibration & noise reducing methods - ranked

Immortals · Post by **Immortals** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:57 pm

I broke down and bought a silent drive for my GP drive. The results were solid but not spectacular. I'd guesstimate it knocks the sound level about 2db. It is definitely far more effective than suspension for this drive as the vibration levels are already low and the dominant sound is the airbourne sound. I don't think it's possible to make my pc any quieter (without moving to a notebook drive or ssd). All my fans including my PSU fan are about 500rpm and make less noise than a silent drive encased GP.

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:47 pm

Ok, finally got one of those pupies installed.

All I can say is: I AM VERY IMPRESSED!

Idle noise is lower for 80%, seeking noise lower for 80%, at 1m distance from computer and ambiente noise at 4am which is practicly no noise at all I can hardly, really hardly hear some low noise from computer, in the morning and afternoon I can't hear any noise from computer! Once again, VERY IMPRESSED!

Only trouble is, that I have 3HDDs installed, so when other two shuts off (spins down), I like it a lot. Pure Silence!

But when the other two HDDs spins up, I have almost the same noise level as before the QuietDrive.

So I guess, in the near future, two more QuietDrives for me!

EDIT: I forgot to mention the temparatures.

After 30min of copying large files temperature rise to 40 degrees celsius.
Strange thing is that after rising to 40 degrees the temperature didn't fall back to 36 degrees. It just stayed at 40 after 30min of no copying. And after 8hours it only droped to 37 degrees. Is that normal?

So, 40 degrees, is that too hot for the drive or is it ok?

And if I get two more enclosures for all three drives and install them one on another, what would then the temperature be?

Immortals · Post by **Immortals** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:12 am

Tomson wrote:Ok, finally got one of those pupies installed.

All I can say is: I AM VERY IMPRESSED!

Idle noise is lower for 80%, seeking noise lower for 80%, at 1m distance from computer and ambiente noise at 4am which is practicly no noise at all I can hardly, really hardly hear some low noise from computer, in the morning and afternoon I can't hear any noise from computer! Once again, VERY IMPRESSED!

Only trouble is, that I have 3HDDs installed, so when other two shuts off (spins down), I like it a lot. Pure Silence!
But when the other two HDDs spins up, I have almost the same noise level as before the QuietDrive.

So I guess, in the near future, two more QuietDrives for me!

EDIT: I forgot to mention the temparatures.

After 30min of copying large files temperature rise to 40 degrees celsius.
Strange thing is that after rising to 40 degrees the temperature didn't fall back to 36 degrees. It just stayed at 40 after 30min of no copying. And after 8hours it only droped to 37 degrees. Is that normal?

So, 40 degrees, is that too hot for the drive or is it ok?

And if I get two more enclosures for all three drives and install them one on another, what would then the temperature be?

I'd say 40 degrees after some file copying is fine. You might want to separate the drives. maybe get some esata brackets.

I can't imagine you'd want to fit all 3 one of top of each other (although you can try and see if the temps are acceptable)

Tomson · Post by **Tomson** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:09 am

Well, I just noticed that I can't install 3xQuietDrives becouse of my mobo being to long into case and there is no room for third QuietDrive. So I could installjust two, one on another.

But I'm very happy with the one, which hosts my 24/7 drive, which makes my comp almost inaudible (when other two drives spins down), so I guess for now, I will just use one Qdrive.

A VERY "cool" and quiet piece of hardware this QuietDrive. Very happy with it's performance.