HDD Vibration

[seismik]

I built out my new rig in a Corsair Graphite 600T case (which is a dream to build in, very spacious).

However, I'm getting a lot of vibration in the right side panel coming from my HDDs. I have 4 4 drives (1 SSD, 1 3T and 2x1T). The SATA power cable off my my Corsair HX 650 is hooked into all of them and because they are stacked it "folds" outwards and touches the side panel very slightly. That touch is carrying vibration off of the drives.

The drives are mounted in the Corsair quick load trays. They are fairly snug to the touch but obviously the combined vibration is enough to be noticeable. The cages themselves are totally fixed and not loose. I have tried redistributing them but it hasn't made much difference. One of the drives in particular, an older Samsung 1T seems to put out more vibration than the others.

Options that I can think of:

1. Redo the wiring which will require a much messier wiring job (including molex to SATA) adapters off of the HX 650.
2. Getting rid of a drive or 2 (seems like a waste)
3. Moving drives to the 5.25 inch bays which will require purchasing some sort of brackets

I don't really love any of those options... anyone experienced something similar? Is there a way to better secure those quick mount HDD trays?

Cheers,

seis

 

[C1]

Kind of an odd sounding situation. If there's that much vibration from the HDDs themselves, then one would think that you'd have to isolate the actual drives from the case.

If you think that it's just a cable against the case situation, then cant you just put a piece of foam, bubble wrap or something of the like as an insulator between the case and cable (ie, the cable rests on the insulator)?

Note that HDDs which vibrate also can have a nasty habit of whining too. Worse, noise from multiple drives often beat together creating a particularly annoying noticeable cyclic pattern.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Try snapping two rubber bands around the drives so they form parallel "tracks" between the drive and the sled. That should help reduce vibration issues. Alternatively, try a thin sheet of foam underneath (you know, the nearly paper thin stuff).

 

[seismik]

Thanks guys - will give the rubber bands and/or foam a try tomorrow night and let you know the results. A picture may be in order too as I feel like the cabling of the sata power is "wrong" somehow having it stick out from the drives so much...

 

[Sleepingforest]

Totally off topic: I just realized something awfully ironic.

Your name is "seismik," which is likely a transformation of "seismic," which in turn means "earthen vibrations."

And you're having trouble with vibrations.

:awe:

 

[seismik]

Karma is a bitch!

 

[biostud]

Set to spin down after 15 min of non usage in power management?

That's what I do.

 

[seismik]

I did a bit of a combo - the elastic bands didn't do quite enough as the only ones I had were a couple of mm's wide. Couldn't find those big rubbery thick ones anywhere. So I did the foam layer underneath which did seem to have a small improvement. I also redistributed the drives in the cages as an experiment and finally trying to tuck the SATA power cable sideways so that it didn't stick out into the side panel so much. And then finally set drives to spin down after 15 mins.

To that last point, do all drives spin back up when any of them are accessed? Or drives will spin down and only spin up when I'm actually accessing data on them specifically? Anything special I need to do for my SSD? I just set the spin down in the Windows 7/ Contol Panel/Advanced Power settings menu.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I believe hard drives only spin up when they're reading or writing. If you've had the HDDs for a while, give defragmentation a shot to decrease seek times--BUT DO NOT DEFRAGMENT A SSD. SSDs should be automatically detected by Windows, and TRIM and AHCI mode should be enabled by default.

 

[biostud]

Only the drive accessed will spin up. You will notice a little lag when the computer spin up a drive.