Is suspending my hard drives worth it for silence?

[f4phantom2500]

Firstly, I wasn't sure if this should go in Memory and Storage or Cases & Cooling, but the goal here is to get information about silencing my computer; the only relevance of the hard drives themselves is their sound.

I've read about stuff like this

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page1.html

and it's an intriguing idea...but here's the thing. I'm running 2 Western Digital Caviar Greens (WD6400AACS) in a RAID 0 array. These are already considered quiet drives, but there are 2 of them, after all. What kind of audible difference could I expect? My case is a Cooler Master Centurion 5.

 

[zagood]

Easiest way to tell would be to remove the drives from your case (with the computer off) and place them on some foam or other non-conductive but soft material. Turn the computer on and do some standard tasks. Judge what the noise difference is.

With my old raptor, it made a huge difference. With a 500gb Maxtor, a little difference but enough to notice. WD Black, not much difference at all.

p.s. your HDD temperatures will go up a little bit. Usually not enough to worry about, but if they're already high it's something to keep in mind.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yup, probably worth testing before you take the time to suspend them. Elastic suspension made a huge difference with my Samsung drive, but it's 7200RPM and has three platters. Lower RPM drives with few platters won't produce as much vibration and won't benefit as much from the technique.

You could also try adjusting the AAM setting on the drives to reduce noise.

 

[f4phantom2500]

Easiest way to tell would be to remove the drives from your case (with the computer off) and place them on some foam or other non-conductive but soft material. Turn the computer on and do some standard tasks. Judge what the noise difference is.

With my old raptor, it made a huge difference. With a 500gb Maxtor, a little difference but enough to notice. WD Black, not much difference at all.

p.s. your HDD temperatures will go up a little bit. Usually not enough to worry about, but if they're already high it's something to keep in mind.

Thanks. If there wasn't much of a difference at all with a WD Black then I really doubt I'd expect anything for WD Greens...but again there are 2 of them...as far as temps, I'm not too concerned since these are cool drives to begin with and there'd be a lot of air around each one in the 5.25" bays, especially since my case has mesh bay covers with filters.

 

[joetekubi]

I just got 2 of the WD green drives myself. I've got to say, VERY quiet, and pretty cool running. With my current upgrade, I'm trying to greatly silence my pc.
Figure that it won't be too hard to suspend the drives with elastic.
Found a couple of flat elastic "bungee" cords at Lowes for $2.50 each.
Probably cut them to length, fasten the ends with tie wraps and fasten the drives to the bungees with a combo of tie wraps and velcro.
Looks to be an easy install. Easy to undo if I want to go back to the old drive cage mounts.
-joe

 

[f4phantom2500]

I just got 2 of the WD green drives myself. I've got to say, VERY quiet, and pretty cool running. With my current upgrade, I'm trying to greatly silence my pc.
Figure that it won't be too hard to suspend the drives with elastic.
Found a couple of flat elastic "bungee" cords at Lowes for $2.50 each.
Probably cut them to length, fasten the ends with tie wraps and fasten the drives to the bungees with a combo of tie wraps and velcro.
Looks to be an easy install. Easy to undo if I want to go back to the old drive cage mounts.
-joe

Thanks Joe, lemme know your findings.

 

[Zap]

Obviously the noisier the drive, the better the results.

I used to use an Antec Solo for my main rig and that case came with drive suspenders. It didn't make much of a difference to my data drive, but my Raptor X drive was a different story - much, much quieter.

 

[davidrees]

It depends on your case and your drives, but if you already have a very quiet system, then suspending the drives is a good move to bring the noise down even more.

I think there are some pics in my sig that show my suspension on a Cosmos S case.

In that build, I had a Coolermaster HyperTX cooler running silent, a fanless 4850 card, a Corsair PS and all my system fans were running at inaudible speeds.

If you did not see the LCD display lit up, you had a hard time telling if it was on - but like I said, the drive suspension was the last move and I was really skeptical, but it made a very large difference in a system that was already very quiet.

Give it a shot - its a very cheap mod to try. I essentially ended up suspending a hard drive in each 5.25" bay using a couple dollars of fabric covered sewing elastic I bought from Wal-Mart.

 

[Ken90630]

I seem to remember reading a test someone did several years ago that showed a notable increase in data errors written to the drive (and maybe an increase in bad sectors?) when it was suspended by elastic cords. I remember it 'cuz I was thinking about doing the same thing at the time.

The reason, of course, would be that the drive can 'bounce' a bit on the elastic cords 'cuz it's not fastened down anymore. AFAIK, you don't want the whole drive moving at all when it's writing. It was a test on a reputable Web site IIRC, but I don't remember which one.

I haven't looked into it again since, so I'm not an expert on this. Just thought I'd mention it.