Few questions

retsnom · Post by **retsnom** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 6:28 pm

Hello, first post here!

I'm going to be sending my WD hard drive to be replaced through factory warranty soon and am planning on buying a new hard drive to back up all the files(about 500 GB).

Since I'm having some problems with computer noise (can't hear the fans, just the hard drives humming), I figured it'd be a good idea to buy a quiet hard drive, and since it's only used for storage purposes, it doesn't need to be super fast.

I'm looking at the Samsung HD502HI and some WD Green edition drives after reading around the site and this forum. Which one would you guys recommend?

I also want to soft-mount my fans and the drives and the only thing I found close to that were the "Anti-Vibration PC Mounting Kit - 60 components" on endpcnoise.

Is that a good price/product? I know Nexus is a good brand but I need some feedback.

Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks for reading.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:30 am

The anti-vib pack http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std ... ivibration does look decent on reducing fan noise. First I was afraid that it'd be one of those typical kits that merely provide thin rubber stripes than can be placed between PSU/case or fan/case. Anyway, fan mounts look decent.

The HDD mounting rubbers however don't really qualify what SPCR people would call decoupling. It's not quite soft-mount to use small rubber pieces. They can reduce noise a bit, though, but the real problem is, how can you use them. They look like similar to soft-mount rubber pieces used in old Maxtor Onetouch enclosures. Those rubber pieces need a BIG hole in the case to put in place, then slided to the HDD mounting hole.

How on earth do you get these in place using any typical mounting?

Maybe with 3.5"-to-5.25" adapter pieces, if there's different sizes of holes in them. Some of them have. Don't really know if I'd recommend such mounting. It's not very secure - and if you're going to do improvised mounting, why not do it properly with rubber bands? Those reduce vibration-borne noise to practically zero, leaving only airborne noise.

The price of the noise reduction kit isn't too excessive. There's no harm in buying it for the fan mounts & cable ties. If haven't done cablegami, you might consider trying it.

Can't really comment on 500GB GP vs 500GB F2. Pick the cheaper, I guess.

retsnom · Post by **retsnom** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:12 pm

Thanks for the reply!

What would you recommend instead for the soft-mounts? I've read around and I couldn't really find information regarding soft-mounts... maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:21 pm

Hello & welcome to SPCR!

Suspending your hard drives is probably the best thing to do.

retsnom · Post by **retsnom** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 5:24 pm

Thanks!

Yea.. I would like to suspend my drives some day but figuring out how to go about doing that and actually implementing it with my current case(Antec 300) would take some time. I'm trying to think of a way to suspend the drives without using the 5.25 bays since most of the space is used up.

Soft-mounting would be a temporary solution until then.

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:32 pm

retsnom wrote:Thanks!

Yea.. I would like to suspend my drives some day but figuring out how to go about doing that and actually implementing it with my current case(Antec 300) would take some time.

3 Steps

1. Buy elastic cable from store (best to get it from a fabric store
2. Tie it in your computer
3. Install disks

retsnom · Post by **retsnom** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 10:25 pm

Tie it where, exactly? The drive bays are too narrow to suspend the drives, the 5.25 bays are all taken. The only way I could think of is to get rid of the drive bays and put something else in place to tie the elastic cables, which I don't really have the time or the resources to do at the moment. If you happen to know a good way to set it up, I'd love to try it out, however.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:51 am

Hi,

You should be able to turn the hard drives vertically, or set them in diagonally. Run the elastic cord from one level down one or two levels on the other side?

retsnom · Post by **retsnom** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:26 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hi,

You should be able to turn the hard drives vertically, or set them in diagonally. Run the elastic cord from one level down one or two levels on the other side?

I think what I'm trying to wrap my head around is trying to suspend multiple hard drive in this tiny space. Vertically would probably work great with one and maybe two drives, but I'm not sure if I can achieve that with 3 hard drives. I like having lots of space for my video files since my computer doubles as a media center(which is why I'm trying to make it less nosier in the first place).

I guess the easiest solution would be for me to buy a 2 TB hard drive and transfer all the files... though that's certainly not as creative and more expensive.

Meanwhile, this constant humming and vibrating noise is eating me up every second, lol.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:20 am

How about decoupling two of them vertically in 3.5" bay with rubber bands, and decoupling the third by setting a soft foam bed for it on the floor of the computer case?