Velociraptor noise: difference among different IcePaks?

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:58 am

Hello, by reading SPCR's official Velociraptor review, I was worried about the acoustic performance of the drive when attached to its IcePak, as it was deemed to increase the drive's noise by strongly resonating. However, when I recently purchased a pair of these drives, I found them to be extremely quiet, more so than my single platter WD 320 GB drive, both in idle and seek mode. I even felt comfortable enough disabling AAM altogether considering how quiet the seeks are, and how astonishing the performance I get in return is.

I was wondering if the backplane ready IcePak is somewhat better, noise wise, than the regular one found in the drive's first revision and SPCR's review. It seems sturdier than it, and that's where the noise difference could come from. Any thoughts on this matter, or hands-on experience? Am I just deaf?

ilya · Post by **ilya** » Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:34 pm

I would assume you bought the new Velociraptor, either the 450gb or 600gb.
IIRC the new ones have rubber grommets on the Icepack.

vincentfox · Post by **vincentfox** » Sat Apr 24, 2010 7:59 pm

I'm hoping to see SPCR review of the new VelociRaptor.

I love the 300-gig earlier model I have for speed, but the noise is at the upper margin of what I consider acceptable.

KayDat · Post by **KayDat** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:03 am

ilya wrote:I would assume you bought the new Velociraptor, either the 450gb or 600gb.
IIRC the new ones have rubber grommets on the Icepack.

Grommets huh? Doesn't that defeat the heat sinking ability, seeing as the drive will be isolated from the sink? Not that it really matters, since it's mostly for show/convenience anyway.

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:48 am

Thermal pads are used to transfer heat, so rubber grommets shouldn't fully isolate the drive. Though I didn't see anything about this feature around.

ilya wrote:I would assume you bought the new Velociraptor, either the 450gb or 600gb.
IIRC the new ones have rubber grommets on the Icepack.

No it's not, it's a 74 GB drive. That's why I think it's strange I found it to be so quiet.

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Thu May 13, 2010 2:04 am

No one on this? Strange, I thought the Velociraptor is pretty popular...

mkk · Post by **mkk** » Fri May 14, 2010 5:57 pm

They were for a while but now there are all these SSD's floating around.

Anyway, yes there were reports soon after the review that different variants of the Ice Pak's had been seen. But many removed those anyway, sometimes to fit into a 2.5" silencer of some sort. The cooling effect of the Ice Pak is unnecessary anyway.

bgiddins · Post by **bgiddins** » Mon May 24, 2010 6:49 pm

Wonder if anyone has tried making their own rubber grommets etc for the older Icepaks. I've had a 300GB VR for about 18 months now, it sits loose in the Icepack with the torx screws removed - it got rid of the annoying whine. Tried screwing it back in the other day - the whine came back immediately.

Hadn't thought of trying to source some really thin rubber etc to place between the drive and the mountpoints for the screws - it would need to be heat resistant.

Cutting some little squares out of a latex glove (latex appears to have a high melting point) might work as vibration insulation to at least prevent the whine. If I try it I'll report back. Just need to make sure that the drive still contacts the thermal pads on the heatsink.

Parappaman · Post by **Parappaman** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:15 am

I thought I could update this long-forgotten topic with my hands-on experience, just in case there is anyone interested in it.

First and foremost: the acoustic performance greatly varies from the lower capacity models to the high capacity ones. Single-platter drives (74 and 150 GB) vibrate less and are overall a little quieter than the 300 GB one. As for the IcePak, the backplane-ready doesn't make the hard drive sound tiny or resonate, while the other one with straight fins on the back does. This pretty much answers my initial question.