Packing foam under HD

bobdoe · Post by **bobdoe** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:38 pm

Stuffed a bunch of those little chunks of packing foam under the hdd inside the cd/dvd drive bay cage. It's much easier than using the elastic ropes since all one has to do is grab and throw(Well maybe not that easy). Prior to this.. dtemp read 30-34C and now its 36-39C. I consider this a success as the noise is the same as suspension.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:38 am

bobdoe wrote:Stuffed a bunch of those little chunks of packing foam under the hdd inside the cd/dvd drive bay cage. It's much easier than using the elastic ropes since all one has to do is grab and throw(Well maybe not that easy). Prior to this.. dtemp read 30-34C and now its 36-39C. I consider this a success as the noise is the same as suspension.

Agreed, using foam is the easiest/best option IMO for mounting harddrives. It is also extremely easy to use and allows for creative design approaches to mounting the harddrives...

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:46 am

As your temp readings reveal, the down-side to sitting drives on foam is increased heat. And I'm surprised the temps aren't higher. My maxtor drives have the temp sensor on the bottom....plus the bottom does get hot. Sitting on foam is not an option for any of my drive setups.

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 6:43 am

I drilled some holes in the bottom of my case and looped some elastic string through to hold my drive down on a piece of foam. The bottom is facing up and there is no active cooling and no HS and it never goes above 29degC!

This 0802N is kickass. My fujitsu used to reach 39-45 when sandwiched between foam in the same position.

bobdoe · Post by **bobdoe** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 1:56 pm

hey Phil 29degC is pretty good with the foam. Which side is it better to have the hard drive resting on? I always thought that it should have the shiny metal facing upwards.

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 2:03 pm

I have the the shiny metal resting on the foam. I had the fujitsu the other way around with another piece of foam over top and then tied down because it was too loud (whiny). That killed the noise completely but was quite warm. This drive is really cool.

The black metal that is the base of the drive gets much warmer than the shiny metal on top, and is where you should direct your active cooling or any heatsinks you plan on attaching to it.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:10 pm

PhilgB wrote:I drilled some holes in the bottom of my case and looped some elastic string through to hold my drive down on a piece of foam. The bottom is facing up and there is no active cooling and no HS and it never goes above 29degC!

This 0802N is kickass. My fujitsu used to reach 39-45 when sandwiched between foam in the same position.

Temp of 29C is quite good indeed. Your fujitsu was also well within temp spec at 45C, but 29C is really excellent!

I have used the foam-mounting approach with many drives and never had any problem with them - they all stay nicely within temp-spec requirements. No problems whatsoever, only successes - and much easier than suspension-mounting. Glad to see others are having similar successes with this option too!

bobdoe · Post by **bobdoe** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 2:17 pm

Well so far my maxtor dmax 9 is doing great. Now idling at 36C as i type. The temperature of the hd really depends on where it is resting in the case. For example in my cd bays, the hd would be near 40C and under my floppy area it would be 36C. I'm finding that the foam is much easier to use than suspension which required knot tying and what not(get it? knot and not? yeh ok that was lame).

Tim Mitchell · Post by **Tim Mitchell** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 9:57 am

I like the simplicity of the foam option, but I suppose there isn't much hope of silencing more than one drive this way.

I must admit, setting a hard drive upside down and on foam seems frighteningly casual to me. My hard drives usually demand that I sacrifice birds to them or they'll go pfft. But no one seems to be having troubles, so perhaps one of my drives could get its own little mattress.

Tim Mitchell

bobdoe · Post by **bobdoe** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:11 pm

you can always put the an hd on the bottom of the case and another on the cd bays.

einolu · Post by **einolu** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:36 am

If also used a rolled up T-shirt and that worked, It was just a bit too wabbly for me, so I have it mounted regualarly. I was thinking about this design though:

~EO

tay · Post by **tay** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 11:24 am

Tim Mitchell wrote:I like the simplicity of the foam option, but I suppose there isn't much hope of silencing more than one drive this way.

I must admit, setting a hard drive upside down and on foam seems frighteningly casual to me. My hard drives usually demand that I sacrifice birds to them or they'll go pfft. But no one seems to be having troubles, so perhaps one of my drives could get its own little mattress.

Tim Mitchell

I have 4 80 GB drives sitting on hard foam sandwiches on top of each other. Bottom 3 are Maxtor 5400 rpm, top one is a LOUD samsung 7200 rpm. Arranged as foam - drive - foam - drive- etc. 2 fans suck out air from the back, and all vents other than front bottom are taped shut. The drives turn off after 15 mins so theyre mostly off anyway. Theyre used to store "data" (movies/games/apps) and I only need access to 1 or 2 drives at a time. I check temperatures on the top drive (hottest) and SMART says 37C-38C under linux. Seems rather low tbh since the drive is quite warm.
Try and test regularly, youd be surprised what works. BTW, this is not in my main system but a closeted linux box.

Packing foam under HD

Packing foam under HD

Re: Packing foam under HD