Suspended Hard Drive

[sunrunner20]

Well, I got tired of my new seagate hard drive making my case click whenever I used it. So, I got around to suspending it using some bits of angle Al, and some sewing bungi rope stuff.
http://sunrunner20.brainspore.net/files/imagegallerymodule/@random429e79e399d07/gallery5/ul_IMG_1042.jpg
http://sunrunner20.brainspore.net/files/imagegallerymodule/@random429e79e399d07/gallery5/ul_IMG_1044.jpg
http://sunrunner20.brainspore.net/files/imagegallerymodule/@random429e79e399d07/gallery5/ul_IMG_1048.jpg
Yes, it is suspended at an angle, I didn't want to spend the time getting it "just right" yet. If I need more space I can do it latter.

[Arca_ex]

That's pretty cool, too bad all my 5 1/4" bays are used up.

Next step: Hang my computer from the ceiling...

[shellshock]

haha nice! Watch the hard drive when it spins up. it will probally shake and look sweet. lol

[SolidxSnake]

i thought running at an angle messed up the bearings?

Or is that changing angles while running? :bang head

[Scott9027]

Were you successful?

How are the acoustics after?

Are there any risks to suspending your hard drives?

[BWR]

Some people at SPCR (http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=8240) (scroll down a bit for functioning pics/links) have been doing suspension for a while. They have developed many functional ways to silence them without damaging them.

EDIT:
Pulled the trigger a bit too soon.

Seems that one of our members (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=234798) has already done suspension.

[Sleepy_Steve]

Hmm, thats a need mod... and ill be noise is improved as well :beer:

But it would make me nervious to tilt a drive while rotating due to the gyroscopic stresses placed on the rather fragile and brittle platters.

[shellshock]

moving them at different angles dosent hurt them. Think of laptops, there constnally spinning too as your moving around. The same goes with portable music players, such as ipods. Altough they arent constnally spinning. Just for about 10 seconds

now if you slam it or drop it hard enough, it will cause a head crash, and possiblly kill the drive

[Sleepy_Steve]

True, but i droped my ipod 4ft, and kicked it 20 more feet along the floor into a wall once by accident (running in halls) and it still works... sortof - only hard drive bassed player that clicks and skips when playing.

I may well have been being overly conservitave.

[Thumdar]

Good idea, I may give that a try.

[Cjwinnit]

I did this a while back with varied results. It was relatively successful at first but the hard drive ran a lot hotter than normally (in contact with the case the case acts as a heatsink), and I made the mistake of using rubber bands (which dry out and snap).

[Enablingwolf]

Most modern drives have shock buffering built in. Older drives used to be very finiky on how they were operated. So bieng suspended should be ok. If the lines are tight enough, it should have less then a 16th of an inch of movement.

Having a slight lean should be ok. My drives have a minor tilt to them and for the last 9 months, have been doing just fine. If the astetics are buggin you, then tighten one side up a little. A screw or creative means can add tension to one side of the supspension system. I thought of a small gauge wire wrapped around one part. Then wrap around the other. Grab in the center then start spiinning it. That should create enough tension to lift the one side up. :D Could be used also to tighten the lines if it is a tad loose.

[The_NME]

I think it was argued that the bearings would wear unevenly, but it was countered that they wear so little, making orientation a moot point.

Looks good

[flamerail]

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/no-vibe-3.jpg

^^^ thats off that other site.. THATS A WICKED IDEA!! My hd arnt loud thoe.. /me hugs his maxtors.

[Mr. Perfect]

THATS A WICKED IDEA!! My hd arnt loud thoe.. /me hugs his maxtors.

Actually, acording to the SPCR folks a lot of the HD noise that the suspensioning cuts out is resonance. The case acts as a ghettofied speaker that amplifies the drive's vibrations to create noise. If you place your hand on your PC and feal vibrations, a suspension could reduce system noise anyhow. :) People with fully decoupled machines say that if you place a hand on their machine, it feals like it is off.

[ƒÓÒl]

Looks good to me, you can even add a little TIM to use those angle brackets as heatsinks for the drive....two birds with one...er...bungee. :D

[Dukeman]

Most drives now have fluid bearings so orientation does not matter and the bearing and platters are fairly rugged against shock. Suspension does reduce seek noise and resonance but drives can run hotter. Sunrunner's angle aluminum method has the benefit of providing additional heat sink potential for the drive.

[laserkitty]

I've been using zip-ties for a while now. Sewing bungie would probably be easier, but I've got a ton of small zips, and no bungie, so...

[soulfly1448]

Good idea! Running at an angle messes up the bearings? No.

[JakeKlem]

cool mod

[Susquehannock]

Not bad, but I think there are better & more efficient ways to alleviate vibration
transfer to the case.

[ƒÓÒl]

I'd seen once on a HD maker's site many many moons ago that mounting diagonally wasn't a good idea, mostly due to problems controlling the read-head. Western Digital I believe it was.
I don't think that's a concern anymore since drives have so much tighter tolerances these days, and I haven't seen that issue brought up for a long time.

Anyway, just as any other gyroscope, the strain on the motor/platter assembly bearings wouldn't be in running it at an angle, but in changing that angle whilst it was running because the gyroscope (in this case spinning platters) would attempt to keep the origional orientation and the bearings would be straining to force them to a new position.

[Celeron_Phreak]

MP3 player drives and laptop hard drives are similar pieces of technology, desktop hard drives a bit different when it comes down to how much of a beating and jiggling they can take.

Moving a desktop drive around when it's on isn't such a grand idea, as it can cause head crashing and abnormal moter failure. A laptop drive is different as it's motor is smaller, the size of the drive is smaller, so changes of it's orientation while running don't bother it so much. Think of the weight shift when you tip a 3.5" drive while it's on - it goes off balance for a second or two. A laptop drive doesn't go as far off blanace because the weight of it isn't as significant to pull it off balance.

Just a few things I picked up from my dad who used to build drives for 10 years at Hewlett-Packard before they trashed their Disc Memory Division.

[nd4spdbh2]

doing stuff like this takes hd noise down a BUNCH... i have suspended drives... encased in foam (got WAY TO HOT) and i have come down to using the thicker ruber foam mouse pad... i cut little squares and put them in the corners of the hard drives using double sided sticky tape.... currently i have 3 3.5inch hds sitting vertically at the bottom of my case between the 2 pannels that hold the hds vertically... the rubber mouse pad takes the seeknoise and wine of the hds down alot... and i got my front intakes blowing over them so they stay nice and cool!

cool lil mod tho... been ther done that :santa:

[Bad ConNecTioN]

Not bad, but I think there are better & more efficient ways to alleviate vibration
transfer to the case.


Please tell.

[Susquehannock]

Please tell.
Well, my set-up sounds something like what nd4spdbh2 mentioned in post #24 above.

Here's mine ~ rack1 (http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/8458/newsys179qm.jpg) ~ rack2 (http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1793/cagefinish9vq.jpg)

Advantages? ...... nothing major but here are a few of my opinions, and a couple things others
mentioned which I hadn't thought of.
_____________________________________________

~Practical~

1] - easy to mount right behind bottom front intake fan

2] - rack has open design so air travels freely around drives

3] - hotter side of BOTH drives face toward center where airflow from front intake fan is greater

4] - drives face opposite directions so lateral forces act against eachother helping to eliminate harmonic & mechanical
vibrations transfered in the rack

5] - rack has only two mounting points - Easy to dampen vibrations

6] - both mounting points at one of the most solid parts of the case - the bottom.

_____________________________________________

~Asthetics~

1] - drive position places the more interesting side of drive toward window
_____________________________________________

Would also add that in the past I had two Raptors in one of those racks which are among the
most noisy & hot running HDD's. = Cool & quiet.

Please feel free to share your thoughts & critisisms. Have another design in mind & would
appreciate the input.

[HiProfile]

Suspension has been done for quite some time. I never quite liked the idea of the 'rubber band' style - I don't like my 'junk' flopping around, if you catch my drift :sn: I did these two types over 2 years ago. #1 was the 1st, but I switched to #2 to go into the spare 5.25" slots to make room for a heater core in the base.

#1 is a bunch of aluminum and rubber discharge hose cut up.
#2 is multiple aluminum brackets mated to special aluminum-safe silicone. I have an 80mm fan running silently in front of them...also suspended. :beer:


http://home.wi.rr.com/hiprofile/images/lianli/04-02-cage.jpg

http://home.wi.rr.com/hiprofile/images/lianli/04-14-standoff.jpg