Enclosure vs. Suspension

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:41 am

I currently have 3 hard drives suspended in my case. This has reduced noise from the vibrations but I can still hear seek noises quite clearly unfortunately. This computer is used in a quiet room for work purposes and any noise is really quite irritating.

With this in mind I'm considering purchasing a Scythe Quiet Drive enclosure:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebP ... .25%22+bay

Now as far as I can see this can't be suspended itself since it's just too large. Would the sound damping it provides be negated by extra vibrations? I assume there would be more vibrations since it hard mounts to the case.

Essentially I'm asking is it worth it?

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:49 am

Yes...... IF suspended (elastics or soft foam)

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:22 am

Hmmm, but I don't have room to suspend it in my case given that it's already the size of a 5.25" bay, the largest available.

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:41 am

the 5.25 inch scythe enclosures are a little bit smaller than 5.25 inch bays if you remove the antivibration pads... that gives you something like 5 mm of clearance on both sides of the enclosure.
Depending how you suspended the drives, you might get if to fit.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:03 am

NO!

I admit, this is just one person's opinion, but I feel quite strongly about this one. I exchanged my suspensed setup (one 74 Raptor, one 250 Gb Spinpoint) for two Scythe Quiet Drive enclosures for the exact same reason: anoying seek noises. I am not happy with the results. Seeks are muted a little (but only a little) and the vibration noises are back in full force.

For the time being I just slipped some pieces of foam under & between them, but I still think that the suspended setup I had before was less noisy. I'm looking into suspending the enclosures, but they are quite big, plus they are heavy with the disks inside, so that might be a bit of a challenge, but it might work with a tougher suspension setup. Now I just have to find the time...

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:08 am

Not much of an endorsement for the scythe quiet drives then. Thanks for the feedback.

Given that it's a fairly costly method of silencing (well at least compared to my couple of quids worth of elastic for the suspension) I think I might steer clear. At a guess putting some sound dampening material throughout the case might be of more help.

Are there any other enclosures that are actually worth the money?

Strid · Post by **Strid** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:14 am

Sorry, but I beg to differ. I put my noisy (seek noise mostly) Raptor150 in a Scythe QD. That quieted the seek noises by a lot! It's resting on some soft packing material right now and fastened with a bungee cord, so not completely soft mounted, but still, the noise went down a lot this way.
If I put my WD GreenPower 1 TB in a scythe QD, it's about inaudible to me.
It dampens mostly the seek noise, but also takes a little off the vibrations. I would recommend true soft mounting for an ideal system.

A +1 from me on the Scythe Quiet Drive. But I see another problem if you put three hard drives in QDs and mount them in adjacent 5.25" bays. You won't have much air flow around them, so I suspect that you would have problems with temperature management. Probably up to 50Â° C'ish.

Moon GT · Post by **Moon GT** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:53 pm

I've got my HDD in a Xilence XD Cooler CL, elastically suspended in a 5.25" bay. It doesn't seem much quieter than just the elastic suspension on its own, but its worth if for the extra cooling, if you can do it (about 5 degrees). I think I could probably reduce the high-pitched motor whine a bit more if I adjusted it slightly, the HDD has a small "lip" around the edge which prevents the top panel from contacting the inside of the enclosure. Placing an AMD stock heatsink on the top used to reduce the whine a lot, so maybe a thin plate of aluminium could be placed on top to bring it into contact.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:09 pm

Strid wrote:Sorry, but I beg to differ.

Which is a good thing, IMHO. It goes to show that every situation and environment is different and that every individual perceives noise differently. It might have something to do with the fact that my Raptor is of the pre-FDB generation (ball bearing, I suppose), which are supposedly noisier than the more recent models.

Strid wrote:You won't have much air flow around them, so I suspect that you would have problems with temperature management. Probably up to 50Â° C'ish.

Agreed. You don't need a lot of airflow: my QDs get by with just the airflow from the PSU fan (P18x-style), but without airflow your disks run the risk of heating up.

Adam wrote:At a guess putting some sound dampening material throughout the case might be of more help.

I've used simple foam plus a vinyl backing (cheap flooring tiles or leftover pieces), which does a bit of absorption and a bit of dampening. It won't entirely quiet your drives, but every little bit helps.

Immortals · Post by **Immortals** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:14 pm

Adam wrote:
Essentially I'm asking is it worth it?

It depends on two factors. Firstly what drive is being silenced. The seek noises are more apparent in low vibration drives like the GP and the quiet drive is reasonable at reducing these kinds of noises. It doesn't do much for vibrational noises. Secondly if you hard mounted these drives it may in fact increase the vibrational noises so if you have a big case you should put it on sorbothane/suspend the quietdrive.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:20 am

Adam wrote:I currently have 3 hard drives suspended in my case.

Which case do you have? Preferable a picture

Maybe somebody have an idea for suspension. And is it an option to consolidate 3 disks into one? If so, it might be more easy to suspend. A new disk costs, but price pr. GB gets lower and lower all the time. And you sva emoney, when buying one, instead of 3 Scythe Quiet Drives...

A more drastically method might be mounting the disks in an external enclosure, and put them into a closet or something...

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:43 am

I have a SQD and think it helps a good bit with HDD idle noise and to some extent seek noise. Mine is in the 3.5" bays on its side sitting on thick foam. I don't think any vibrations are passed to the case like this and HDD noise is pretty much a non-issue now. Also the case air intake is stright passed the SQD so my HDD temps are low.

Pics with previous HDD box to give idea:
http://www.eltonmaizemaze.co.uk/Jessica ... AndFEK.jpg
http://www.eltonmaizemaze.co.uk/Jessica ... nished.jpg

Regards, Seb

kike_1974 · Post by **kike_1974** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:48 am

I have my disks enclosured with coolpacks (alleycat's method), with the enclosures suspended in foam.

In my opinion, this is by far the best method to isolate noise from hard disks. Of course, this method coupled with an already "quiet" disk, and probably AAM enabled, provides the best results. I've been using it for more than 2 years and found no problems until now.

I bought a scythe quiet drive as well, and it does not isolate so much noise, it was a deception for me. Problem with this enclusure is that the material above and below the disk is too thin (it can't be other way to make it compatible to 5.15").

PS. Sorry for my English

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 6:56 am

For the latest range of drives seeks are pretty damn quiet. Suspension is dirt cheap and cuts vibration out of the question. For me the good enclosures cost far to much to justify.

CyberDog · Post by **CyberDog** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:05 am

I think that alleycat enclosures are the best way to enclose drives. That and quiet drives. You'll probably have no problems...

I have a scythes quiet drive on F1 and it needed to be suspended and even on that situation it didn't isolate enough noise.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:28 am

Enclosures are only good IF:

A. your drive has virtually no vibration to begin with.

OR

B. your plan on suspending it even after its inside the enclosure

I have the SQD. The 3.5" and the 2.5" version. They do very little to reduce vibrations, and thus if you hard mount them into a case you will get the vibration noise back. They do do a fairly good job though at quieting down seek noises and that air "woosh" sound.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:34 am

I have SQD its lying on Sortohabnepad on 5,25" expansion slot and is virtually inaudiable, slight seek noise detecteable under 1M at the dead of night. My P182 has no vibrations. I think SQD on softfoam / sorthobane pad is excellent choice. But putting 3 SQD's requires a lot space.

Enclosure vs. Suspension

Enclosure vs. Suspension

Re: Enclosure vs. Suspension

Re: Enclosure vs. Suspension