HD silencer recommendation

S

SparksNelec

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
226
I'm looking to quiet down my Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS drive. While not horrible, it's still louder than my case fans at idle and the seeks are a bit loud for my tastes too. It's running as cool as my 7200RPM drive so I think it should be fine to enclose it. Can anyone recommend a hard drive silencer that would work with this SAS drive? I'd just hate to buy something that doesn't work very well so I'm hoping to hear some experiences.
Thanks.
 
I should probably add that it's mounted in a Silverstone TJ09 case, which has thin foam strips that press against the sides of the hard drive so I don't think case vibrations is the issue. What's not helping is the mesh screen right next to the hard drive cages letting all the sound through. That's kind of why I thought a 5.25" enclosure for a 3.5" drive might help.
 
As noted above, suspend it in a rubber band "cage" where it floats free of the chassis. If that's not possible, at least from the horizontal perspective, try it vertically in the same space, it doesn't matter as long as it's suspended and it works.

Considering it's a 15K Cheetah, there really ain't too much you can do to quiet it save for that "trick" or perhaps lining the case with sound dampening material. :D
 
I also have to recommend giving suspending the drive a go before ordering silencers. I personally can't stand hard mounted drives anymore because of it.
 
Rubber bands are acceptable for a very temporary solution, but rubber material will decay and fail within weeks.

A good commonly-available elastic is women's fabric-covered elastic hair bands, found in the beauty section at Walmart, drug stores, etc. My drive rests in a simple cradle formed by two of these hair bands.

An unsolicited suggestion: If suspension works for you, consider removing your HD drive cages from the case. Hard drive cages form an air dam. Removing my drive cages was the single most effective hack in optimizing air flow in my case.

Hope this helps!
 
Not sure why people are still recommending to suspend the drive when the OP already said it is not in direct contact with the case. And besides, I can guarantee you most, if not all, of the loudness is coming from the drive itself, not the vibrations of the case around it.

@SparksNelec, the only way you're going to silence that 15k drive is to try to block the noise somehow. What do you think about putting it in a sealed external enclosure instead of your open case?
 
I'd be open to the idea of an external enclosure but it would have to support SAS and I'd rather not have it be some homemade thing. Even if I put it in an external enclosure, I'd probably still need it inside the case since the SAS ports are on the motherboard (P6T Deluxe). There's probably enough room inside the case to do something like that. Did you have a product in mind HenryBravo?
 
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