Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening techniques

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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bozar
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Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening techniques

Post by bozar » Fri Jul 20, 2012 7:28 am

Are modern vibration elimination techniques sufficient for low speed 5400 RPM drives? I've been clinging firmly to elastic suspension desperately for 6 years now but since it makes mounting difficult and may decrease HDD reliability I'm thinking about using stock solutions in my next computer if it's good enough.

ces
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by ces » Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:34 am

bozar wrote:may decrease HDD reliability
What makes you say that?

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:50 am

ces wrote:
bozar wrote:may decrease HDD reliability
What makes you say that?
I have no reliable sources, It's just what I've read on different forums and such.
Hard Drive manufacturing engineers have pretty consistently stated that suspending a drive is not good for drive reliability, and technically they do not provide a warranty for such installations (although obviously you aren't going to tell them that it was suspended if you did return a defective drive under warranty). I don't know if this has been proven, but if a drive already makes a lot of noise or vibrates much while suspended, it does seem logical to me that suspending a drive could exacerbate reliability problems. There a quite a few threads on this subject from years ago on this forum.
Quoted from my thread about Seagate reliability. Higher temperatures are a given, maybe meaningless with cool 5400 rpm drives but none the less.

I've just built a case out of wood with two 120 exhausts in the back as well as only two intakes in the bottom with possibility to suspend 6 HDDs but man, this case is humongous and the HDDs are what makes it so damn deep. Suspension takes a lot of space to put it simple.

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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by mkk » Fri Jul 20, 2012 12:20 pm

Unfortunately most cases, even those that sport some sort of drive mount dampening, are bad enough to resonate even 5400 RPM drives. Most review sites simply glance over this factor so there's been little need for improvement in the industry overall. Antec's larger silicone grommets are certainly good enough though, if you can find a case with those that fit your needs otherwise.

ces
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by ces » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:15 pm

bozar wrote:Are modern vibration elimination techniques sufficient for low speed 5400 RPM drives? I've been clinging firmly to elastic suspension desperately for 6 years now but since it makes mounting difficult and may decrease HDD reliability I'm thinking about using stock solutions in my next computer if it's good enough.
1. Lian Li has, in my opinion, very good HD mounting systems. The newer version is especially convenient in terms of easily swapping drives in and out.
2. Take a look at these options:
viewtopic.php?p=539359#p539359

ces
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by ces » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:18 pm

bozar wrote:Suspension takes a lot of space to put it simple.
Take a look at the Noise Magic No Vibes III:
viewtopic.php?p=539359#p539359

I have one and it is a much more solid suspension system than the one on the Antec Solo. A bit pricey though.

ces
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by ces » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:22 pm

bozar wrote:
I don't know if this has been proven, but if a drive already makes a lot of noise or vibrates much while suspended, it does seem logical to me that suspending a drive could exacerbate reliability problems. There a quite a few threads on this subject from years ago on this forum.
Quoted from my thread about Seagate reliability. Higher temperatures are a given, maybe meaningless with cool 5400 rpm drives but none the less.
It doesn't take much of a breeze to cool hard drives... and the famous google study seems to evidence that if you keep drives too cool, it impairs their lifespan. They do best if they are run a bit hot.... at least in Google's application.

Vibrations could be an issue. But I would think that depends on the resiliency of the mounting system you are using. If it supports any resonance at the wrong frequency I could see that being an issue.

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:37 pm

mkk wrote:Unfortunately most cases, even those that sport some sort of drive mount dampening, are bad enough to resonate even 5400 RPM drives. Most review sites simply glance over this factor so there's been little need for improvement in the industry overall. Antec's larger silicone grommets are certainly good enough though, if you can find a case with those that fit your needs otherwise.
This was the answer I was afraid of but it doesn't come as a surprise. I have a couple of silicone grommets from my P182, I may have to reuse them then. Haven't been able to find them being sold separately...

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:49 pm

ces wrote:
bozar wrote:Suspension takes a lot of space to put it simple.
Take a look at the Noise Magic No Vibes III:
viewtopic.php?p=539359#p539359

I have one and it is a much more solid suspension system than the one on the Antec Solo. A bit pricey though.
Yeah it seems solid enough but so does Solo II and homemade elastic solutions including my own. Problem is that it takes up a lot of space either multiple 5.25 slots for multiple drives or homemade HDD-cages. That makes it impossible to have anything but an all 5.25 slot miditower or something similar, all of which are hopelessly outdated.

I like the way of Fractal Design R4 but the lack of adequate suspension make me having second thoughts about it.

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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by MikeC » Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:59 pm

Hard Drive manufacturing engineers have pretty consistently stated that suspending a drive is not good for drive reliability, and technically they do not provide a warranty for such installations
I've never come across any statements like this. Can you point to any references?

In fact, a 2001 Seagate white paper on Drive Acoustics is linked in the HDD Recommended/Reference article. Citing that paper:

First,
Seagate has considered the total effect of drives on a PC system and can show that structure-borne noise is the dominating source of disc drive-induced PC acoustics. In fact, testing has shown that changes in stand-alone drive acoustics had little effect on the overall system acoustics when drives were hard mounted in the chassis.
Secondly,
At one time, years ago, isolators were thought to be impractical for disc drive mounting; the frequent long seeks could induce excessive drive motion through isolator “wind up” and “release,” which caused settling problems during seeks, which could in turn reduce drive performance and/or data integrity. Current drive designs, combined with Seagate’s research and development of new isolator materials and designs, have largely eliminated these issues. In typical PC applications, over 90 percent of all seeks occur within only 30 tracks, which is less than one-fourth of one percent of the drive’s tracks, inducing very little motion and wind up. The materials Seagate recommends for isolators are highly damped rubber compounds, which minimize the possibilities for wind up, amplification and other unstable conditions.

Our testing indicates that WinBench scores (industry-standard drive benchmarks) are not affected by mounting drives using isolators. Further testing beyond the bounds of common disc drive functions did reveal that when performing high numbers of long seeks (long seeks are becoming more rare as track densities increase), write performance could be somewhat reduced, while read performance remains unchanged. Again, most drives perform many more reads than writes, so that overall performance, even in these extreme circumstances, is not perceivably affected.
Considering the exponential increase in HDD density in the 11 years since this paper was published, the amount of physical travel involved in typical seeks has to be considerably reduced... which means a well-implemented elastic cord suspension is "safer" now than ever before.

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:29 pm

MikeC wrote:
Hard Drive manufacturing engineers have pretty consistently stated that suspending a drive is not good for drive reliability, and technically they do not provide a warranty for such installations
I've never come across any statements like this. Can you point to any references?
Certainly but as I previously wrote I have no reliable sources, just users on forums. The quote is taken from my thread about Seagate and reliability: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64104 , the last post.
In fact, a 2001 Seagate white paper on Drive Acoustics is linked in the HDD Recommended/Reference article. Citing that paper:

First,
Seagate has considered the total effect of drives on a PC system and can show that structure-borne noise is the dominating source of disc drive-induced PC acoustics. In fact, testing has shown that changes in stand-alone drive acoustics had little effect on the overall system acoustics when drives were hard mounted in the chassis.
So hard mounting is the worst in matters of acoustics? No arguing with you there!
Secondly,
At one time, years ago, isolators were thought to be impractical for disc drive mounting; the frequent long seeks could induce excessive drive motion through isolator “wind up” and “release,” which caused settling problems during seeks, which could in turn reduce drive performance and/or data integrity. Current drive designs, combined with Seagate’s research and development of new isolator materials and designs, have largely eliminated these issues. In typical PC applications, over 90 percent of all seeks occur within only 30 tracks, which is less than one-fourth of one percent of the drive’s tracks, inducing very little motion and wind up. The materials Seagate recommends for isolators are highly damped rubber compounds, which minimize the possibilities for wind up, amplification and other unstable conditions.

Our testing indicates that WinBench scores (industry-standard drive benchmarks) are not affected by mounting drives using isolators. Further testing beyond the bounds of common disc drive functions did reveal that when performing high numbers of long seeks (long seeks are becoming more rare as track densities increase), write performance could be somewhat reduced, while read performance remains unchanged. Again, most drives perform many more reads than writes, so that overall performance, even in these extreme circumstances, is not perceivably affected.
Considering the exponential increase in HDD density in the 11 years since this paper was published, the amount of physical travel involved in typical seeks has to be considerably reduced... which means a well-implemented elastic cord suspension is "safer" now than ever before.
That's comforting to hear, been doubting my suspension due to failure of a few Samsung drives and a couple of Seagates but that was probably due to bad samples.

I love suspension but it limits the number of cases I can use to a small fraction and most of these have something I'm really bothered with, not to mention that most modern cases tend to reduce or exclude more 5.25 inch bays with each generation. Sure SSDs are a great way to get around the matter but the price limits them to being used for major storage purposes so for the time being we are to rely on 5400 RPM HDDs as well.

My 7200.12 will probably not be a system drive for long and neither will my very old but reliable Seagate IDE HDD so the problem these drives have with vibration will not matter but for new 5400 drive it will. I hope that rubber isolators will increase their effectiveness soon to be good enough to handle all vibrations of most slow spinning HDDs.

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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by Mr Spocko » Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:03 am

I used some foam wedged in between drives to dampen vibrations simply cut them to cover the sides and strips to cover between the drives. You have to make sure the breather holes are clear. I have a slow spinning 120mm front fan so temperatures are not a concern. Transportation not a problem either as they are held in and the foam on the side panel helps too.

I agree that makers could do more in this regard out of the box that is. The rubber mounts help, but do not help enough for some drives.
A bit of DIY works wonders here

ces
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by ces » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:21 am

You know all these issues about size, heat and vibration disappear if you use 2.5 inch drives. They come in capacities of up to 1T now.

There are ones specifically designed for streaming:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822236221

Low power
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136927

Speed
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148710
If you count the WD Velociraptor as a 2.5 inch drive, lots of speed.

Low Cost
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822178006

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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by xan_user » Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:10 am

Mr Spocko wrote:I used some foam wedged in between drives to dampen vibrations simply cut them to cover the sides and strips to cover between the drives. You have to make sure the breather holes are clear. I have a slow spinning 120mm front fan so temperatures are not a concern. Transportation not a problem either as they are held in and the foam on the side panel helps too.

I agree that makers could do more in this regard out of the box that is. The rubber mounts help, but do not help enough for some drives.
A bit of DIY works wonders here
im with spocko.

ive been using foam cradles with great success...and its way easier, and safer to move the case, than with suspension. besides, now that drives are so much quieter, i dont see the need for elastic suspension any more.

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:10 am

ces wrote:You know all these issues about size, heat and vibration disappear if you use 2.5 inch drives. They come in capacities of up to 1T now.

There are ones specifically designed for streaming:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822236221

Low power
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136927

Speed
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148710
If you count the WD Velociraptor as a 2.5 inch drive, lots of speed.

Low Cost
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822178006
Yeah sure it's possible but it would cost me about 400 bucks to replace my current drives :(. If 2.5" drives were cheaper then I wouldn't even bother buying 3.5" drives.

bozar
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Re: Modern HDDs and modern HDD-vibration dampening technique

Post by bozar » Sat Jul 21, 2012 12:03 pm

xan_user wrote:
Mr Spocko wrote:I used some foam wedged in between drives to dampen vibrations simply cut them to cover the sides and strips to cover between the drives. You have to make sure the breather holes are clear. I have a slow spinning 120mm front fan so temperatures are not a concern. Transportation not a problem either as they are held in and the foam on the side panel helps too.

I agree that makers could do more in this regard out of the box that is. The rubber mounts help, but do not help enough for some drives.
A bit of DIY works wonders here
im with spocko.

ive been using foam cradles with great success...and its way easier, and safer to move the case, than with suspension. besides, now that drives are so much quieter, i dont see the need for elastic suspension any more.
I'll try using foam in the HDD-bay next time. Thanks for the tip!

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