Suspension in Antec NSK3480

didi · Post by **didi** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 2:29 am

Hi everyone

I have a fairly quiet Antec NSK3480 build. Loudest components are my two hard drives (Samsung 500GB in raid1). They are soft mounted with the rubber grommets that came with the NSK3480. You can see what I mean in this review: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews ... case/3.htm . One drive in the upper compartment, one on the floor of the case.
The drives do not touch the metal of the case, but I still get some vibrations from them on the case.

Would suspending my drives make any difference ?

didi · Post by **didi** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:10 pm

Hmm 72 views, no answer.

Let me rephrase my question: Will suspension transfer less vibration than the soft-rubber grommets ?

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:51 pm

Suspending probably will reduce the vibrations, but some people think it is better for drive reliability to not suspend a drive, especially if it is vibrating a lot (it is less of a problem to suspend a drive that does not vibrate much--Catch 22). But mine is probably the minority view on this forum.

It appears that you have drives with above average vibraton levels. Check out the WD Green Drives instead.

Those "rubber" groments are actually silicone, and they usually work very well for most drives.

didi · Post by **didi** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 12:28 am

m0002a wrote:Suspending probably will reduce the vibrations, but some people think it is better for drive reliability to not suspend a drive, especially if it is vibrating a lot (it is less of a problem to suspend a drive that does not vibrate much--Catch 22). But mine is probably the minority view on this forum.

It appears that you have drives with above average vibraton levels. Check out the WD Green Drives instead.

Those "rubber" groments are actually silicone, and they usually work very well for most drives.

Thanks for replying. Actually my drives are not vibrating excessively. It just seems to me that a tiny amount of vibration "leaks" through the silicone grommets.
Now this is what I think, correct me if it's bullocks: Suspending would mean the distance the vibration would have to travel over the elastic string would be longer, therefore less vibration would be left where the string is attached to the case.
Although the silicone grommets in the NSK3480 soft-mount the drives, the distance vibration travels over the silicone is only about 1mm.
Does this make sense ??

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:43 am

Elastic suspension would reduce the amount of vibration reachng the case compared to the silicone grommets.

yamahaSHO · Post by **yamahaSHO** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:57 am

Suspensending a 2.5" HDD was my solution.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:31 pm

I have 2 of these cases and have found them to be very sensitive to hard drive vibration - otherwise pretty quiet out of the box - I have Seagate 80gig SATA drives in both of mine , both mounted in the original silicon mountings on the floor of the case . I am using this particular model of hard drive as although it has some seek noise it is almost vibration free . I have tried a Samsung 160gig drive and the uneven (pulsing) resonance was very annoying though the same drive (the exact drive not one of the same spec. ) is not audible at all in a first gen sonata case , indicating that this particular model case maybe a bit sensitive to drive vibration . I also tried a Samsung 500gig drive and a Samsung Eco Green 1tb drive - The Eco Green drive was the quieter of the two but although it did not have a pulsing resonance it was still noticeably audible . But because the noise was constant I could sort of mentally tune it out ( model HD103U/Y) and the eco green drive is not any slower , and maybe a little faster than the 1 year old Seagate 80gig drives - but still too noisy for me to have 20 inches away from my face on the desktop ! If I do find a soloution that is qick and easy I will post it back here . The next ones I will be trying are Samsung 250gig HD2504hj drives as I have one in another (P180 mini ) and it appears to be very quiet - but that machine is not as sensitive to drive resonance .

didi · Post by **didi** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:15 am

Thanks for the input. I'll probably experiment with suspension a bit to see whether it makes any difference. Will report back my findings.

Bye

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:52 am

Suspension is a lot better than the rubber grommets in my P182. As for reliability, I have been doing it for years with at least 20 drives and never had any problems. I do run regular tests on my hardware just to check, and apart from one that failed completely (electronics dead) none have ever shown a single error.

Suspension mounting in Antec cases is tricky. Some people just drill extra holes, which is what I think I will end up doing.