Suspension VS foam

[IDvsEGO]

I have done a couple of suspension mods and been happy with them so far. My current setup uses 2 vertically oriented 3.5 drives suspended beside each other in the upper internal 3.5 drive bays of my Antec VSK-2000. They are already VERY close to the front fan but I have managed to get them securely away from it. My new video card is so close that it any amount of setting by the HDDs will make them either touch the fan or the card so I am looking for another alternative. I cant suspend them lower without drilling new holes. I will do that if I have to but not right away because I dont feel like gutting my PC again right now. So I am thinking about doing a foam mounting system on the floor of the PC. Is the sound going to be significantly different? any tips or ideas? Probably going to be vertical and side by side still, just lower to avoid the video card. I work in IT so I have access to LOTS of the foam packing items that come in new PCs.

[MikeC]

If you use soft enough foam, it's about the same as an elastic suspension. Just experiment.

[IDvsEGO]

I am not crazy about this foam after my first exploratory sitting with it. stiff and has a bit of noise to it naturally. I did have a thought that I could change the orientation of my drives...again...and still do suspension. I am going to take a crack tonight.

[svil]

i've been fighting vibration/structural noise for years, and finaly i have some solution turning a 3.5" drive noise into just shhhhhhh.
so, a 1TB seagate is sitting upright on a 3cm thick rubber cube, and is surrounded/wrapped with piece of a rubber-plated ~7mm thick carpet - a leftover from office repairs (hard to find in usual carpet shops). No screws, no mechanical contact with anything else (even cables may carry the bzzzz); otherwise the "box" is a cartonbox of some dvd-burner (no structural noise-carrying but no noise-dampening either).
Still that shhhhhh is too much for me, so the drive is in autosleep mode if unused for 10minutes. There's another 2.5" that's always on but it's 5 times less noise.
overall it's a hackish DIY but now i can sleep around it. well, most times.

HTH
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ASROCK A330ION MCP7A-ION, 2x2G ddr3, 250G Seagate 2.5" + 1Т seagate3.5" on/off, dvdrw 3.5", Fortron FSP 400W, all in a "shoebox"; EIZO L778
еееPC 701, 2G, 16Gsdhc; no fan

[MikeC]

The foam I use most often for such tasks is the very light open cell foam about 1/4 to 3/8" thick which is used as protection under the trace side of retail box motherboards. Take one of these and try folding it in 4 and it gets ~1" thick. This works for me -- sometimes in only double-thickness layer.

[IDvsEGO]

OK, I know the foam you are talking about but don't think I have any left over. I will take a look around the local craft store, thanks.

[zodaex]

I use Kingwin's 2.5" silicone enclosure and it kills the vibrations great.

[Strid]

My Quiet Drive'd WD Green Power 1TB harddrive rests on four patches of harder foam, they're about 1.5x1x5 cm and approx 2 cm tall, one glued onto each corner of the Quiet Drive. That's what I found was best - suspension was not a option given my case layout and the size of a 5.25" Quiet Drive.

[ntavlas]

Open cell foam FTW I used to line the interior of my pcs with acoustic foam half an inch thick and used any leftovers to soft mount my hdds. It was enough to absorb vibrations most of the time with some older drives needing a 1 inch thick layer.

[JazzJackRabbit]

(even cables may carry the bzzzz)

I used to think I'm really anal retentive about noise, but you sir, you top it all, you belong to a mental institution with white soft padded walls for added noise insulation...

To the OP, I've used to put my drives on foam for years, it works. My main rig now has 1.5TB Samsung enclosed in scythe drive that rests on a foam piece in the lower P180 compartment. Works great. Just use open cell foam, hard or soft variety. The soft one works best, but even the hard one will work because you're still decoupling drives from the case.

[alleycat]

Actually I agree with svil. HDD vibrations do carry surprisingly well along the cable, and if it's touching the case it will resonate.

[JazzJackRabbit]

Actually I agree with svil. HDD vibrations do carry surprisingly well along the cable, and if it's touching the case it will resonate.

The only reasonable way of this happening is if unsecured HDD cables vibrate from excessive HDD vibrations and rattle against the case. This I suppose I could recognize as a valid concern because that might actually be audible to human ear. However the idea that vibrations from suspended HDD would travel through cables to motherboard headers/PSU and then to case and would actually cause audible resonance/vibrations, which is what svil was implying I think, is absurd, it is clinically insane.

In fact it is on par with that one guy from head-fi forums who claimed wrapping power cord powering his headphone amplifier in aluminum tinfoil vastly improved sound... Sorry, but you have to draw sanity line somewhere...

[judge56988]

Actually I agree with svil. HDD vibrations do carry surprisingly well along the cable, and if it's touching the case it will resonate.

Surprising but true - I had that happen on my last build. One errant cable that was touching the side of the case but easily fixed with a cable tie.