What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
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What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
Hi,
I am trying to understand how to go about my 7200 HDDs from a noise perspective. I have only owned three in my life so my experience of them is limited and when I recently bought a WD5000AAKS that turned out to sound like a jet engine I got very confused. Reading threads here on the forum gives me the impression that elastic suspension is very popular in the silencing community and this puzzles me because to my ears the air turbulence noise that comes from the idle disk which is spinning is so much more apparent and disturbing than vibration noise and or seek noise. Yet, vibration and seek noise seems to me to be what people are most trying to come to grips with here on the forum. Of course, this could be because the issue of turbulence noise has already been solved, and this ambiguity is the reason why I post this poll.
I would simply like to ask the forum members what their preferred first step to silence the most annoyinjg noise coming from a 7200 RPM drive would be. This is so that I can get my knowledge a little more in perspective and more properly gauge what to expect from drives I consider buying.
So, please share with me and others your first-take on 7200RPM drives as regards silencing.
Thank you.
/g
The WD5000AAKS (which had the casing of the more noisy version discussed here at the forum) has since been returned and since I was scared off so much by the discovery of the two versions, I used the money to buy a Megahalems instead.
I am trying to understand how to go about my 7200 HDDs from a noise perspective. I have only owned three in my life so my experience of them is limited and when I recently bought a WD5000AAKS that turned out to sound like a jet engine I got very confused. Reading threads here on the forum gives me the impression that elastic suspension is very popular in the silencing community and this puzzles me because to my ears the air turbulence noise that comes from the idle disk which is spinning is so much more apparent and disturbing than vibration noise and or seek noise. Yet, vibration and seek noise seems to me to be what people are most trying to come to grips with here on the forum. Of course, this could be because the issue of turbulence noise has already been solved, and this ambiguity is the reason why I post this poll.
I would simply like to ask the forum members what their preferred first step to silence the most annoyinjg noise coming from a 7200 RPM drive would be. This is so that I can get my knowledge a little more in perspective and more properly gauge what to expect from drives I consider buying.
So, please share with me and others your first-take on 7200RPM drives as regards silencing.
Thank you.
/g
The WD5000AAKS (which had the casing of the more noisy version discussed here at the forum) has since been returned and since I was scared off so much by the discovery of the two versions, I used the money to buy a Megahalems instead.
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- Location: Seattle
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
My first step is to get a 2.5" drive instead of 3.5" Then upgrade to a a bunch of 5600 or 5900s in RAID 0.
Before I learned that trick though, I would wedge the drive into its cage with foam on all sides. I learned with an open-air build that pressure on the 'lid' of a drive would sharply decrease the airy 'whirr' noise. Foam achieves that goal without choking the pressure balancing hole and absorbs all the vibrations.
Before I learned that trick though, I would wedge the drive into its cage with foam on all sides. I learned with an open-air build that pressure on the 'lid' of a drive would sharply decrease the airy 'whirr' noise. Foam achieves that goal without choking the pressure balancing hole and absorbs all the vibrations.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
Automatic acoustic management (AAM)
Sure its pretty slow now, but I don't hear anything.
Sure its pretty slow now, but I don't hear anything.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
First step would be to get a Scythe Quiet Drive enclosure. Then put the drive in there and sandwhich the thing in a 5.25" bay with some nice foam all around it.
That made 5.400 rpm Green Power Drives very quiet, albeit not really inaudible. A 7.200 Caviar Black was still pretty audible though.
I had to buy a 2.5" drive, put that in a 2.5" Scythe Quiet Drive and put that into yet another 3.5" Drive to achieve anything resembling close to silence.
That made 5.400 rpm Green Power Drives very quiet, albeit not really inaudible. A 7.200 Caviar Black was still pretty audible though.
I had to buy a 2.5" drive, put that in a 2.5" Scythe Quiet Drive and put that into yet another 3.5" Drive to achieve anything resembling close to silence.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
Suspending it is the superior solution imo. It will lower noise beside vibration to. A close second is just laying it on a bit of foam but it won't work with multiple drives.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
I followed this post viewtopic.php?t=49562&highlight=cosmos+1000 and used stretch magic, now my HDDs are as silent as SSD. I am very happy with the result.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
HDDs these days are quieter than a few years ago, because they are using a different type of bearing. You may be dealing with a noisy drive that you may not be able to get a good result with.
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
I remember that one of the experts here used to buy this rubbery material and cut it in strips. Then he placed the hard drive on two of those strips. Very elegant method. I used a raptor HD for about 6 years using this method and it worked wonderfully. I wonder if people still do that. I still have some of that material in a box somewhere. I might use it with my new build (Antec p183 case and Caviar Black 2TB drive)
Re: What is your first step when silencing 7200RPM HDDs?
Stretch magic = best. stuff. ever.
Plain and simple for the 3 bucks for 20 - 30 ft of the stuff, its the best bang for your buck. Suspend that hdd and just bout all the noise is gone. ALL my hdds in my comps are suspended. even the WD 320gb laptop hdd in my htpc.
Plain and simple for the 3 bucks for 20 - 30 ft of the stuff, its the best bang for your buck. Suspend that hdd and just bout all the noise is gone. ALL my hdds in my comps are suspended. even the WD 320gb laptop hdd in my htpc.