Hard drive silencer/insulation?

[William]

I'm looking for a hard drive silencer/enclosure so I won't be able hear my IBM 75GXP. I'm also thinking about getting a new hd, but I still want it in a silent enclosure.

I've seen this silent hd enclosure from quietpcusa.com, but it's only for 45 gb drives. Does any other manufacturer produce insulated enclosures for large hds?

 

[User1001]

Originally posted by: William
I'm looking for a hard drive silencer/enclosure so I won't be able hear my IBM 75GXP. I'm also thinking about getting a new hd, but I still want it in a silent enclosure.

I've seen this silent hd enclosure from quietpcusa.com, but it's only for 45 gb drives. Does any other manufacturer produce insulated enclosures for large hds?

You should read more carefully it was only giving an example about the 45 gig HD

The SilentDrive? works with all 3.5" hard drives which have a standard height of 1" (2.54 cm) - this covers virtually all modern drives and non high-end drives manufactured within the last 2-3 years. 1.6" high drives are not catered for as they would not fit into the enclosure while still allowing the product to fit into a 5.25" drive bay, and the heat dissipation from such drives would be higher anyway due to the increased friction of a taller spindle. Please ensure your hard drive is 1 inch high before ordering a SilentDrive? since the product will not work with 1.6 inch high drives!

However there are numerous HD silencer that can be found on the AT forums by a simple search.

 

[William]

Take your own advice, and read the 3rd paragraph of that website:


++QUOTE++
Ok, let's say you are the lucky owner of an IBM Deskstar 75GXP with a capacity of 45 gigabytes and you wish to know whether you can safely use it inside a SilentDrive? in order to reduce the noise. Firstly, the IBM specification sheet shows that the drive runs at 7,200 rpm - a good start since if it had been 10,000 rpm or higher, it would probably have run too hot. Also we can note that IBM specify a maximum ambiant operating temperature of 55°C in common with most other manufacturers.

Now let's get some more detail - we are told that the power dissipation at idle depends on the number of disks (platters) in the drive and will be either 6.7 watts or 8.1 watts. We have a 45 Gb model which we are told has 3 data disks (platters) and therefore the correct figure for our drive is 6.7 watts. This is less than the 6.8 watts SilentDrive? guideline figure and therefore the drive should be fine while enclosed.


Had we owned a 60 or 75 Gb model, the figure would have been 8.1 watts which would have meant the drive would have run much hotter, too hot to be enclosed. Obviously if you have not yet purchased a hard drive, it would be a good idea to check compatibility in this way in order to aid your buying decision before purchase.

 

[RalfHutter]

The SilentDrive does have problems with heat. The drive enclosure to get is the SmartDrive. There's a review of it here.

 

[b4417]

Originally posted by: William
I'm looking for a hard drive silencer/enclosure so I won't be able hear my IBM 75GXP. I'm also thinking about getting a new hd, but I still want it in a silent enclosure. I've seen this silent hd enclosure from quietpcusa.com, but it's only for 45 gb drives. Does any other manufacturer produce insulated enclosures for large hds?

While not an enclosure, I have used these to amazingly good effect on my 10k Raptor drives:

Drive Isolators

Don't do anything to cool the drive, but then again, they don't enclose the drive that could actually prevent proper cooling.

HTH,
Bill