Transfer heat but not vibration for hard drives?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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SlaveToSilence
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Transfer heat but not vibration for hard drives?

Post by SlaveToSilence » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:06 am

have we found anything yet that can transfer the heat of the hard drive to the hard drive cage without transfering the vibration/noise? have been away for a while :wink: :lol:

Lawrence Lee
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Post by Lawrence Lee » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:41 am

Magic invisible conduction.

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:42 am

sounds expensive :p

Strid
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Post by Strid » Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:08 am

@Lawrence Lee: You mean traditional airflow?? There's no magic to that! :lol:

@SlaveToSilence: Do you have a more specific problem?? I kind of hard to answer that question in gereral, lol.

xan_user
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Post by xan_user » Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:59 am

float the drive on a Styrofoam plate in a tub of liquid.

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Mon Jan 05, 2009 10:00 am

cool, i'll just put it in the bath with the rest of my computers :D

Riffer
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Post by Riffer » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:00 pm

These Nexus things are the only devices that I have had any success with:

http://www.nexustek.nl/disktwin_hdd_vib ... _black.htm

They where able to reduce the HDD temperature a few degrees, but are nothing brilliant.

jhhoffma
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Post by jhhoffma » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:05 pm

Gelpacks. It's been done. Look up "alleycat enclosure". Not exactly a ready-made solution but can be mounted with some work.

Technically, gelpacks don't conduct the heat, but absorb enough of it slowly that the aluminum case can radiate it away.

blackworx
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Post by blackworx » Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:05 pm

I use heatsink brackets like these combined with suspension, but at the end of the day that's just helping air do its job better. No magical invisible handwavium at work.

StApostol
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Post by StApostol » Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:50 am

jhhoffma wrote:Gelpacks. It's been done. Look up "alleycat enclosure". Not exactly a ready-made solution but can be mounted with some work.
+1

This is as close to the holy grail as it gets.

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:57 am

do gelpacks work for 24/7 systems or just ones that are only on in the day? (slow to warm up but need to cool each night or become ineffective)

jhhoffma
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Post by jhhoffma » Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:16 am

Depends on how hot the HDD gets and how tolerant it is to higher temps? But for a newer efficient drive (think WD Green), you won't ever have a problem. Of course, those drives are ridiculously quiet to begin with.

In the end, it's simpler to suspend the drives and place a slow, inaudible fan in front to move enough air to keep them cool and forget about vibration. But if idle whine is your issue, the simplest choice is to buy a new HDD, otherwise your stuck with encapsulation.

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:57 am

i have 2 Samsung Spinpoint T HD501LJ 500GB hard drives which are pretty quiet, are there quieter drives out now that perform as good if not better? :D

jhhoffma
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Post by jhhoffma » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:05 am

Unless you go with a Velociraptor, you're not likely to find anything that performs significantly better as is quiet as well. All the newer WD and Samsung drives are very good and should be quiet enough for anyone.

Suspend those drives, maybe use a fan on them if you need to, and they should be quiet and cool enough for anyone.

edh
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Post by edh » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:30 am

Liquids can conduct heat very well but won't conduct vibrations much at all. Anyone want to try dunking a hard disk in a vat of distilled water sometime? Come on, it's all low voltage and moving parts are sealed in.

It's already been done with a complete system with oil so a hard disk on it's own might work.

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:32 am

duuuuude thats not a bad idea actually, they could be tethered in some sort of metal container filled with mineral oil, that'd keep them cool and silent! brilliant! seal the container with silicon along the top to make it water tight tho ofcourse :D

Strid
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Post by Strid » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:37 am

edh wrote:Come on, it's all low voltage and moving parts are sealed in.
What's behind the "do not cover this hole" hole found on most harddrives??

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:39 am

thats where the wizard lives

Sylph-DS
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Post by Sylph-DS » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:17 am

SlaveToSilence wrote:thats where the wizard lives
The Whimsical Wizard of the Drive Platter Hollows!

So anyway, I googled it (was curious myself). And I ran into several theories, ranging from plain open breathing holes to special pressure valves. Eitherway all of the theories seem pretty clear about covering up the holes being a generally bad idea.

Here's a couple links on the topic:

http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.c ... 35,00.html
http://forums.hardwarelogic.com/f20/do- ... -6384.html

Anyway, if you like building stuff, I suppose you could pretty easily run rubber tubing from outside the liquid enclosure to said holes.

Mental note: Next time I have a broken drive, see if it collects a whole lot of water if you submerge it. If the holes are pressure valves, it probably won't. If they are breathing holes however...

SlaveToSilence
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Post by SlaveToSilence » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:24 am

what about the mineral water immersed computers? do they keep the hard drives out/dry?

jhhoffma
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Post by jhhoffma » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:40 am

Yes, usually the HDDs in a submerged system are encased separately or outside the liquid entirely. I believe that those holes are pressure valves that balance the pressure generated inside by the spinning platters.

Submerging a HDD in anything is a bad idea.

As for liquids conducting heat very well and not vibrations, I can only ask if you've ever gone underwater in a lake with a motorboat somewhere nearby. The denser the medium the easier vibrations are transmitted. Which is why the vacuum of space is silent.

There is no magic bullet here, only soft-mounting....

BillTodd
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Post by BillTodd » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:56 am

SlaveToSilence wrote:do gelpacks work for 24/7 systems or just ones that are only on in the day? (slow to warm up but need to cool each night or become ineffective)
The gel pack works in two ways:

It kills sound by absorbtion and the viscous gel is heavy, so adds mass, so damping higher frequencies considerably.

It conducts heat to the enclosure far better than an air gap, so as long as the enclosure can dissipate the heat generated by the HDD, the drive will stay cool (the enclosure will often have a greater surface area than the bare HDD, so drive temperature can be less than the drive in free air).


I've run a gel pack cooled HDD for years in my silentPC* (actually I had one up and running before AlleyCat posted his idea on this forum ;)) I've run it 24/7 for weeks on end. I had a minor problem with an early home-brew gel pack, but since using a medical pack I've had no problems at all.


*Mike, you still haven't updated the DIY Systems page with the P4 mod :P

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