Ghetto polyethylene foam vibration isolation drive mount

oken · Post by **oken** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:28 am

I have just bought a VelociRaptor (WD3000GLFS).

After installing it, I noticed quite irritating high pitch noise/whine from the drive. But removing the drive from its "IcePack" as described in this site's review of the drive helped a lot.

Anyway, to mount the drive in the case without the IcePack and to also dampen head seek noise, I build this ghetto vibration dampening drive mount from some plastic L profiles and a piece of polyethylene layered packaging foam:

AuraAllan · Post by **AuraAllan** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:58 am

Hello

Okay idea but why not go with Stretch-magic or some pants elastic instead?

Also, why decouple the VR when you have a hardmounted 3,5" HDD underneath?

oken · Post by **oken** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:03 pm

Thank you for your feedback

AuraAllan wrote: Okay idea but why not go with Stretch-magic or some pants elastic instead?

I hadn't any lying around, and I wanted to try something else and have the lowest possible risk of a future sudden suspension failure while maintaining good dampening performance.

AuraAllan wrote: Also, why decouple the VR when you have a hardmounted 3,5" HDD underneath?

A very good point. I wish I could honestly say I just left it in there for size comparison

But it's my secondary archive drive and only audible to me when the heads are seeking during backup runs. So I left it hard-mounted.

sgrossklass · Post by **sgrossklass** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:31 pm

That foam stuff is brilliant. My main drive (a Hitachi T7K250) sits on two strips left and right which are about its length, some 4 cm wide and 3 cm high. Those in turn are placed on the burner conveniently residing underneath. There's a fan in front of the whole contraption that pulls air out (with some genuine Paper Tissue Padding[tm]), so cooling is not an issue. How's that for ghetto style?

No, I wouldn't want to transport it that way, and the open case front is an invitation for all kinds of RF to come out, but both idle and access noise were much reduced vs. fixed mounting (e.g. the drive vibrates a little, this pretty much disappears entirely). The hard-mounted SV0802N, not exactly known as the very loudest drive ever, is more audible. (But since it shuts down after a while, being my backup drive, that's not a big issue.)

I've been using this simple construction for more than 3 years now. Was wondering whether equivalent (in terms of decoupling and cooling) but less messy aftermarket solution exist these days, as my next PC would probably hold a Velociraptor and some storage drive.

The "naked" Velociraptor is cute. Can't be that much larger than an oldschool 2.5" drive. BTW, I would recommend using some washers for the standoffs holding the drive plus the corresponding screws (in order to spread the force), as the material does tend to sink in a little under permanent pressure. It's not like this would be terribly critical in this case.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:40 pm

thats a great idea. i remember trying something similar with a 2.5" drive a while ago, but the foam i had wasnt stiff enough to hold up the weight of the drive.

I do like this setup better than elastic bands. Elastic bands wobble a bit and theirs the tendency for them to become brittle and break over time. This looks much more secure.

oken · Post by **oken** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:47 pm

Thank you for your feedback, sgrossklass and Aris

sgrossklass wrote:The "naked" Velociraptor is cute. Can't be that much larger than an oldschool 2.5" drive.

Afaik, it differs only in the thickness (height) of the drive. Conventional laptop drives are 9.5mm, the Velociraptor is 15mm like the server type SAS drives it is derived from.

sgrossklass wrote:BTW, I would recommend using some washers for the standoffs holding the drive plus the corresponding screws (in order to spread the force), as the material does tend to sink in a little under permanent pressure. It's not like this would be terribly critical in this case.

I did use washers on the screw head ends, but I see now when I review the pictures that I forgot to put some on the standoff side, well spotted.

The black strips seen on the first photo are some electrical tape I put over the screw heads just in case the foam for any reason would fail. But after burn-in testing, it seems highly unlikely. Whatever I do, I cannot get the drive to heat up over anything but lukewarm and the foam keeps its consistency very nicely. The drives are mounted in the intake section of the case (though without an intake fan), so they have a bit of cooling air flow, but at least in my case it looks like the Velociraptor really doesn't need the extra cooling of the IcePack at all. Even in bare, suspended configuration, it's running cooler than my idle 3.5" 7200 RPM hard-mounted drive.

Aris wrote:Elastic bands wobble a bit and theirs the tendency for them to become brittle and break over time. This looks much more secure.

I Agree. It feels safer.

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 3:55 pm

I'm currently designing my HD suspension, currently it consists of lots of cable clips and many loops of elastic. I was considering having the lowest drive (which sits at the bottom of the case) just resting in position on 2 rubber strips but I think I may try your idea of using the packing foam stuff.

Couple of quesitons regarding it thought, is it safe to just rest the drive on the foam or will it damage the electronics in some way? Also what kind of change in temperatures did you get?

oken · Post by **oken** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:55 am

Polyethylene foam is heat insulating, so you should not place your drive directly on top of it. Use some standoffs if you have them, or just some screws of appropriate length to get some air between the drive and the foam.

About the temperatures: I have no exact numbers, and I went directly from hard-mounted with IcePack to suspended without. But I have this non-scientific description of the temperatures:

With IcePack: "Barely lukewarm, does this drive really need extra cooling?"

Without IcePack, suspended: "Still only lukewarm".

Disclaimer: As mentioned earlier in the thread, my drives are placed in moderate case intake airflow.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:14 am

your never going to have heat issue's with a 2.5" drive. You really only need the standoff's if your doing this with a 3.5" drive. Remember, 2.5" drives are usually enclosed in a notebook with no airflow and no ventelation whatsoever.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:39 am

The Velociraptor isn't designed to be a laptop drive and won't even fit in a laptop due to the extra thickness.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 1:04 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:The Velociraptor isn't designed to be a laptop drive and won't even fit in a laptop due to the extra thickness.

It still has very low heat output and power usage, comparable to other performance 2.5" drives used in notebooks. So its safe to treat it like a typical 2.5" drive.