Is my unorthodox "mounting" job safe?

[CraigRT]

I have had to mount drives like that, but I just use the 2 screws on the one side, and mount it to the one side of the 5.25 bay only... no harm done doing that. it's ghetto, but for someone like a basic user who doesn't care what the case looks like inside, they will never know the difference.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: phlashphire
You could also try this for a quick fix. http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/hddnoise Safer than the insulation of bubble wrap.

this looks interesting at first....but i have BAD experiences with any rubberband i used in my computer.....eg. for "cable management"....the rubberbands get brittle VERY QUICK....especially in a an environment like inside a PC.

I dont know if i would trust them to put a HD up like this...

 

[seasea]

Originally posted by: CraigRT
I have had to mount drives like that, but I just use the 2 screws on the one side, and mount it to the one side of the 5.25 bay only... no harm done doing that. it's ghetto, but for someone like a basic user who doesn't care what the case looks like inside, they will never know the difference.

thats what i do too there is nothing it seems to work well enuf for me

or u can always try to buy or copy this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article39-page1.html

it doesn't seem that my matrox makes much noise the noise comes mostly from the reading/writing which is harder to fix than vibration i think

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Take Xitar up on his offer to ship you those things. I probably have a quadrazillion of them in my cyber-junk boxes, but Xitar beat me to it.

Barring that, some independent hole-in-the-wall computer sales and repair store in your area probably does business on the side salvaging computer-scrap metal and circuit cards. They will probably be able to find you a spara-paira-used ones. They might even give them to you for nothing, if you drop off some cyber-junk in trade.

Now -- about more practical use of unconventional means to secure drives. Of course some of you have seen the various solutions designed to isolate drive vibration and reduce its transmission throughout the case. And someone mentioned the "bungee-cord" idea.

There are noise-reducing drive mounts that adapt 3.5" drives to 5.25" cage-slots, to be had at places like FrozenCPU. I also saw a "project" in which somebody used carefully carved pieces of that gray-sponge-foam material used for certain carrying-cases for delicate tools, guns and so on. But to avoid the problem with heat dissipation, the drive was lodged between these foam cut-outs to bare significant surface area of the drive's top and bottom to air drafts from a front-panel fan.

 

[JonathanYoung]

Originally posted by: akira34
I'm 99.999% sure that if the person had purchased a standard retail version of the drive, it would have come with the drive rails. The person saved a few dollars by going OEM/bulk and would spend the savings in getting something to properly mount the drive.

It's been awhile since you last bought a retail drive hasn't it? They haven't come with drive rails in ages (I wish they still did though).

Anyway, wrapping the drive in bubble wrap is drive suicide. Go to any local computer store and ask for drive rails. Or you can get one of these to extend your bays.

I once got lazy and mounted four HDDs in a drive cage meant for three HDDs. The server started crashing and I literally burned my fingers when I tried to handle the drive cage. I have a feeling that's how hot your HDD will get if you continue to do this.

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: JonathanYoung

Originally posted by: akira34
I'm 99.999% sure that if the person had purchased a standard retail version of the drive, it would have come with the drive rails. The person saved a few dollars by going OEM/bulk and would spend the savings in getting something to properly mount the drive.

It's been awhile since you last bought a retail drive hasn't it? They haven't come with drive rails in ages (I wish they still did though).

Anyway, wrapping the drive in bubble wrap is drive suicide. Go to any local computer store and ask for drive rails. Or you can get one of these to extend your bays.

I once got lazy and mounted four HDDs in a drive cage meant for three HDDs. The server started crashing and I literally burned my fingers when I tried to handle the drive cage. I have a feeling that's how hot your HDD will get if you continue to do this.

Yeah, it's been a while since I picked up a retail version of a desktop hard drive. For the past ~2 years I've been getting them from distributors and such... Every time, the case they are going into has more than enough empty drive cage spots for the new drive to be installed.

I just installed the two Seagate SATA (with NCQ) last night to replace the malfunctioning WD SATA drives. Even though the spec's are within a fraction of a ms between the drives, I swear my system is responding better with the Seagate drives. Maybe that's something esle the WD were doing to my rig...

BTW, I'd never even THINK about N-riging a hard drive into a computer. That includes bubble wrap, expanding foam (that's just as bad, if not worse, of an idea than bubble wrap) or screwing just one side of the drive. The ONLY time you should screw just one side of the drive is in cases that have the drive cage MADE so that it has tabs that go into the other side to help secure the drive. Otherwise, you risk damaging the drive or case. Eventually, the metal against the drive, taking more stress than it was designed for, will start to fail/give. Short term, this might be ok (under a few months) but if you don't properly secure the drive you're just BEGGING for bad things to happen. Look at it this way, with the drive secured properly, you can drop the case a few inches (possibly more depending on the case) and nothing will happen (with it powered off of course). Do that with a drive mounted via the moronic method and you risk the drive dropping inside the case, the side of the bay it's mounted to bending, and more. When the drive drops, you run the risk of damaging the platters, heads, controller board on the drive, and more. ah heck the heads or platters and you can kiss your data goodbye. Damage the board, and chances are the drive is also dead and gone (decent chance for recovery though).

Bottom line, spend a few dollars now to properly install your drive and it will [probably] give you years of good service. Do it poorly and count the days until it gaks...