Harmonics between HDDs

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Harmonics between HDDs

Post by doveman » Mon Sep 02, 2013 5:22 am

I've got a Samsung 1TB SATA drive and an old 80GB IDE drive (Seagate I think) which is just for temporary files so that programs aren't having to read the source files and write to the same drive, which slows things down immensely.

I'm using an Aerocool VS-4 case which has a removable drive cage with rubber grommets http://www.aerocool.com.tw/images/case/ ... vs_4_2.png (I actually put the cage the other way round as it allows for better airflow from the front fan).

Until recently, the HDDs have sounded OK, once I enabled AAM on the Samsung at least as the seeks were very loud on that before I did that. The old 80GB drive is actually quieter than the Samsung, even with AAM on, but maybe that's to be expected and perhaps it's a slower drive. They were still audible, both airborne motor and seek noises and vibrations into the case but nothing too offensive but the other day I started getting a quite intrusive loud hum from them, which persists even if I remove the cage from the case and place it on some bubble wrap. If I disconnect the power from either drive, it doesn't happen, so I can only conclude it must be some sort of harmonics between the two drives. It's a right pain as I've spent a lot of time tuning the fans to make this machine as quiet as possible and now this happens and needs sorting out.

I'd done the screws up tight into the grommets as I'd read that works best but have tried loosening them by a turn or two, to no avail. I guess the only thing I can try is moving the IDE drive out of the cage and screwing it directly into the 3.5" bay behind the front panel or into a 5.25" bay with some brackets I have, which might be better as they have rubber grommets on them. It would be easier if I could keep both drives in the cage though.

Has anyone else ever encountered this problem and found any solutions, other than moving one drive?

doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Re: Harmonics between HDDs

Post by doveman » Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:09 am

Actually, having done some more testing it seems that the Samsung on it's own produces the noise now.

I even thought it might be some interaction between it and the front fan, which I had secured with zipties but decided to screw in instead but even with the fan disconnected the HDD was making the noise.

Then I thought maybe I'd overtightend the screws and ruined the grommets, so that they weren't providing any buffer anymore, so I moved the HDD to the middle position which has never been used and didn't tighten the screws much but it still made the noise. However, I've moved it back to it's original position at the bottom of the cage now and it's stopped doing it, which is weird but hey. In case it starts happening again, I'll have to prepare a plan for my brother to rotate the cage and put it on some foamboard or bubble wrap to isolate it from the case and maybe remove the Samsung and put it on a thick piece of eggshell rubber on top of the PSU, as there's plenty of room between that and the mATX motherboard.

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