Best Silencing plus Cooling Combo for WD5000KS

Bories36 · Post by **Bories36** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:24 am

Western Digital 500gb Hard Drive in my P180b case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136014

Ok, I will be putting this hard drive in the lower hard drive cage of the p180 case, and I don't want any hard drive enclosures.

These are 3 options I've come up with

1. ZALMAN ZM-2HC2 NP Heat Pipe Hard Drive Cooler, Mounted Horizontally with Elastic

2. ZALMAN ZM-2HC2 NP Heat Pipe Hard Drive Cooler, Mounted Horizontally, resting on foam

3. No Vibes III Mounted Horiztonally, on foam...or not

The easiest option would be 3, because I would just have to buy No vibes and set it on the bottoms of the cage.

I would Preferably choost option 1 or 2, because it provides cooling and quiet...

What would be better, foam or elastic, I have extra foam at my house from another project I could use, but that restricts the air flow underneath, I could always build a thing so the foam is only on the outsidse of the bottom of the hard drive so theres still air flow.

So what do you guys think, any ideas? And suggestions, I would rather not spend over $35 on this.

Thanks

xilencer · Post by **xilencer** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:50 am

Firstly, that Zalman cooler is deficient. Heat pipes are meant to lead heat to some sort of radiator that can efficiently dissipate it. The heat pipes on that thing lead to nowhere

Secondly, are you sure the standard mounting method is not good enough? I would test the drive out with the standard P180 soft mounting before looking into anything customized

Thirdly, I'm pretty sure your questions can be answered by searching this forum. A good place to start would be the "HDD vibration & noise reducing methods - ranked" sticky

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 10:49 am

xilencer- the heatpipes are ~2cm circumference, and ~15cm long. With 11 pipes, that equates to 330cm2. Granted, it's not a massive amount of space, but it does make a difference on the temperatures, especially with a little airflow over it (between 5 and 10 degrees on my Maxtors).

I would rather not spend over $35 on this

That may have more bearing on whether to go with Zalman than anything else, I'm not sure of the exchange rate but they're about Â£20 in the UK (I think that's about $40 roughly).

Bories36 · Post by **Bories36** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 11:29 am

well xilencer, I have 2 friends with the p180 case, and it vibrates a lot.

And the zalman heatpipes do drop temps ecspcially when theyre in front of that lower fan in p180

And I have gone to the Vibration and Noise Reduction Methods many times

And thats were I got the idea in the first place

MikeC wrote:
Zalman ZM-2HC1 heatpipe HDD cooler/silencer in 5.25" bay. Keeps HDD pretty cool but doesn't isolate as well, rubber grommets too hard, IMO. Combining this with suspension and placing it just about anywhere in the airflow plath in the case would be great for noise and cooling.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 12:36 pm

IMO you won't get much noise reduction (unless a major proportion of your HDD noise is vibration-induced) but it will drop temps.

Tzeb · Post by **Tzeb** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:11 pm

Sorry to bother, but why did you exclude enclosures?
If i were you, and had the $, i would go for a smartdrive 2002c. With the air from the front fan it will be no problem temp wise.
With an enclosure you get rid of the idle whine, which i find worse than seek noise. Idle whine won't go away with the products you listed. Take a look at my pc... There is no ventilation over my drives and the work properly for well over 7-8 months 24/7. (*knocks on wood)
The nexus enclosure does a good job in silencing my already silent samsung, but the whine from the one in novibes is bothering at night.
I plan to replace the nexus and the novibes soon with 2 smartdrives that will be placed the same way.

Bories36 · Post by **Bories36** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 5:28 pm

Tzeb wrote:Sorry to bother, but why did you exclude enclosures?
If i were you, and had the $, i would go for a smartdrive 2002c. With the air from the front fan it will be no problem temp wise.
With an enclosure you get rid of the idle whine, which i find worse than seek noise. Idle whine won't go away with the products you listed. Take a look at my pc... There is no ventilation over my drives and the work properly for well over 7-8 months 24/7. (*knocks on wood)
The nexus enclosure does a good job in silencing my already silent samsung, but the whine from the one in novibes is bothering at night.
I plan to replace the nexus and the novibes soon with 2 smartdrives that will be placed the same way.

Thats so expensive, 60 bucks for a hard drive silencer, no way, unless...

Unless my hard drive is the loudest thing in my pc (probably not) and I need to shut it up, and foam doesn't work, then smart drive