Hard drive damping (mini-review Quiet drive and Himuru)

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:34 am

Hi guys,

I've learned enough via the forums to ask my question; Thanks for all the useful info

So I've gotten my case pretty quiet except for two things really.

- The whispering noise of my Enermax modu82 PSU (fan noise).
- A high pitched frequency from my Samsung 1Tb SATA II 32Mb HD103UJ

Sounds are hard to describe so I'll do my best. Please ask if anything is unclear.

Regarding the PSU (the least annoying noise):

Unlike my Scythe fans, I can hear this sound from as far as 1 meter.
It can be dampened by simply holding my hand 5 cm (or lower) above it. It is not a high pitched noise nor a hum. It feels like the fan isn't 100% centered. Perhaps I got a monday morning build Enermax:).

Regarding the hard drive:

I can't really hear the or a hum (my hard drive is on soft rubber feet). So no mass damping for me.
I can however hear a high pitched noise (and it is not seek noise as I can always hear it under the right circumstances). I can or can't hear it depending on the position of my head. A slight turn left or right obscures the noise to a large extent; Too bad for me I can always hear it when I am in my normal working position.

My idea was to put the hard drive in a Scythe quiet drive or something in the likes; But which kind of material answers best to my problem?

Thanks for reading through my ramblings:)

Cheers,

Jeroen

Cake_Eater · Post by **Cake_Eater** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:51 pm

I know exactly what you're talking about with the PSU as I got a PC Power & Cooling 750 and have the exact same sound you describe. I mostly try to ignore it as it is the ideal PSU for my build.

For the hard drive I'd recommend de-coupling it. I had a particularly noisy WD Caviar Black that is inaudible over the whoosh of air from my fans. I used some stretch magic to decouple it from the case and I used HDD Scan to enable AAM on my hard drive and that has all but silenced seek times.

Clarification: The decoupling helped with the general ambient drive noise as well as the seeks.

Cake_Eater · Post by **Cake_Eater** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:51 pm

EDIT: Back button on my browser double posted; apologies.

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:22 am

As my hard drive is already on rubber feet, isn't that the same as decoupling?

I've just ordered a Scythe quiet drive and a Scythe Himuru; If anyone is interested I'll do a side by side comparison

telebog · Post by **telebog** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 4:24 am

I have the same issue, 2 noise source:

- the fan noise from corsair CMPSU-400CX
- the hdd wd 640 aaks

I am curious to know how you solved this issue, and you expirience with Scythe quiet drive

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:36 am

The high frequency noise is probably motor whine, which is airborne so decoupling is unlikely to help.

The same noise from my WD5000AAKS drives me nuts and I've tried putting it in a Homebrew drive enclosure, which did pretty much eliminate the whine but I had problems with the enclosure resonating and the drive overheating and causing data corruption, so I'm afraid I don't have a solution for you.

Hopefully the Quiet Drive will do the job for you. I'm thinking of getting one of those myself, so do let us know how you get on.

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 9:58 am

Will do. I hope the package will arrive soon

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:49 am

All has arrived well and of course I've been busy listening. I'm very very keen on silence and all I say is subjective with no scientific testing at all.
I also appear to have good hearing as I had to (almost literally

) pin people to the case so they could hear what I can hear from 60cm away. One person around age 40, 2 over age 50 and one person in her/his mid-thirties could not hear the high pitched noise, at all.
My friends (all between 20-25) could all hear the high pitch. Albeit some of them had to be in very close proximity of the hard drive (+- 10-20 cm)

Let me start by saying the Himuru was a waste of time and money for me. It doesn't dampen anything. Maybe it keeps the hard drive cooler and it will largely prevent the case from resonating because of the hard drive but that is it. I'll say it once more: it does nothing for the high pitchy HD noises or anything else, it only takes care of the case vibrations.
And yes, one may be able to scientifically measure a difference. It still wouldn't matter to me because I can't hear a difference.
I've read some good reviews on the Himuru (otherwise I wouldn't have bought it) so I'm really disappointed with it.

The Quiet Drive on the other hand, fares slightly better. When the drive is unrarring archives, or just doing a search, the produced noises are softer and less intruding. The are still very clearly audible but, in my opinion, not irritating for daily work. If you want to take care of that, use HD tune which will do a far better job (though it will have its impact on transfer rates!). If you are still not satisfied with what HD tune has done, then consider the Quiet Drive.

Now, I personally bought it for the high pitched noise. It is better: yes. Was it worth it: no. The results are audible, so one might argue it was worth it, but the rest of the computer is so quiet, it still bothers me a lot.
My money would have been better spent on a more quiet HD; Too bad the one I bought is being touted as one of the most quiet 7200RPM drive around (at time of purchase anyway).
If money and secuirty implications are no object, buy an SSD. If they are an issue like in my case, hope you get a better Samsung drive than I have bought (sample varation) or buy a different drive.

Reviews can only do so much. I believed I had bought the perfect drive (I spent days if not weeks reading reviews). In the end different kinds of noises bother different kinds of people. I for one just happen to hate that noise I really can't to much about. I'm off looking for another hard drive

* I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have on this. I've written this mini-review with the goal to be bluntly honest as opposed to scientific reviews (which I don't have the gear for anyway).

telebog · Post by **telebog** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:40 am

Thank you very much for this review it was very usefull.

So, with Scythe Quiet Drive SQD-1000 in idle the hdd is still audible?

What case do you have?

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 6:57 am

Hi,
thanks for the mini review.
I'll just throw in my thoughts on the quiet drive : I thought it had a very targetted impact on the noise. Let me explain. The high pitch wine is almost gone (totally gone with the case panels on) but the seeks are more noticeable, yet easier to ignore. It's a really hard thing to explain. Before the quiet drive, seeks where mostly droned in the motor whine. With the quiet drive, the seeks sound like you're hearing your hard drive seeks in a shoe box (with some kind of echo) while you're wearing ear plugs (that's the best image I could come up with). It's a very dull sound.
It really is just the seek sounds without the low frequency.

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:28 am

telebog wrote: So, with Scythe Quiet Drive SQD-1000 in idle the hdd is still audible?

Yes, beyond any doubt:

- Tested with no fans running but the PSU-fan (not even the CPU-fan).
- Tested with all fans running: Zipang CPU-fan @ 640 RPM, Scythe slipstream 120mm @ 600 RPM.

In both cases the HD was clearly audible. Setting the system in stand by turned off the HD and the noise was gone instantly. The HD is thus clearly audible and makes more noise than all the fans together.

telebog wrote:
What case do you have?

Coolermaster Stacker http://www.hardware.info/nl-NL/productd ... STCT01UWK/

Jeroen1000 · Post by **Jeroen1000** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:35 am

@Frenchie. I can clearly hear a high pitched sound when I move my head around. I'm probably very susceptible to that noise. When I set my system into standby it dies and I can easily pick it up again when waking up the system. I suspect that the sound you are hearing may be slightly different.
It is very difficult to recommend a product like the Quiet drive. It worked for you but it sure didn't work for me.

Your description about the seeks is accurate. They have become less bothersome and therefore appear dampened. Your explanation covers this beatifully

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 3:15 pm

Thanks for the info on the Quiet Drive. I'm very sensitive to hard drive whine as well (frankly it seems almost pointless bothering to make my fans quiet when the hard drives are so much noisier!) so I won't waste my money on one of those.

I found the homebrew enclosure to be very effective at stopping the noise to my satisfaction but I had some trouble with it resonating and I think it must have been overheating as I started getting some bad blocks, although it's possible there's a fault with my motherboard/PSU that might have caused those. The temp sensor was only reporting around 42c (in the enclosure with an inaudible fan blowing on it), which is what the drive runs at in free air outside the case, but I guess it's possible that some part of the drive that isn't reflected by the sensor was getting hotter than it should.