Noise Free HDD

A guide to a noise free HDD using stuff you can find in every home. With some rubber and little patience you may turn a Raptor into a quiet baby.... :)

Every HDD makes some noise...Fact
But! This noise is in fact amplified as HDD touches the metal case of our PC.
So if between our case and the HDD is something else (see rubber strap from a tire inner tube) then the noise is deduced significantly!

Step 1: Materials Needed

The materials you need are:

Cross cuts from a tire's inner tube (or anything like a rubber strap)
and some screws.

Comments

[rendermatt]

If i did this I would pull the bands tight so it holds the HD tight and secure and you can still move the case

[xtank5]

Wouldn't putting rubber on both sides of the computer case on the screw that mounts the HDD negate the vibrations traveling through the screw as long as its in tight but not too tight? Refer to picture.

[zack247]

i have a couple antec cases that havw rubbers in them for the hdd's, you have to use the special screws that came with the case though, they are of a different shape than normal screws

[Whatnot]

Yes but since that's only a milimeter of rubber it only helps marginally, the longer rubber works so much better, the system you describe makes you go "I think it's a bit less now maybe" whereas hanging it from rubber makes you say "is it even on?" :)

[static]

There was a time HDs did employ that method in a fashion. I'm look at an older one. The "carrier" that combines the the disk portion with the PC board does mount rigidly to the case, but the disk portion mounts to the carrier as illustrated.

[indulis]

You can buy exactly this type of isolating mount but in silicon rubber, my Vantec P180 case at home comes with them, and the result is almost no disk noise. Having big fans running at slow revs also helps!

[WilderLust]

its a good idea but i think the rubber washer will be too dense to absorb some of the vibration. i did something similar to this but used surgical tubing and i strung it across and set the HD on top of it. i don't move my case when it is running and it is in a place that does not get kicked or bumped but to ensure the HD would stay put, i used some thin plastic ties and ran it in the screw hole of the drive and around the surgical tubing... it does not move at all, looks neat, does not sag much at all so you can stack the drives fairly closely together in the case, is cheap, and it very very quiet... it is very nice. liknus, Thanks for putting this up :-) WL

[xtank5]

I forgot to mention the rubber was from an inner tube. Maybe then it will be less dense and absorb the vibrations better. And the rubber does not go through the holes. Thats why it has to be sorta tight to keep the screw from touching the metal of the case and transferring any vibrations. And friction holds the screw away from the metal.

[MD_Willington]

http://www.atlanticrubber.com/grommets2.htm

Use these...

[WilderLust]

well... they are ok but will not give the isolation hanging gives. actually i have a design for a mount not unlike engine mounts for the hard drive if only i could build rubber things! i can build just about anything with metal, wood, fiberglass, and electronics but i don't know about rubber or the like. i know it is possible because after all they are made out there. i just wish there was an easy way to cast rubber. maybe i will look it up sometime :-) cheers, WL

[Whatnot]

I used the replacement elastic you can buy to sow in your clothes, saw it by chance in a black version while shopping, it uses a compound they call 'elastodiene' defined as: A manufactured fibre composed of natural or synthetic polyisoprene, or composed of one or more dienes polymerised with or without one or more vinyl monomers, and which, when stretched to three times its original length and released, recovers rapidly and substantially to its initial length. And polysoprene is: The purified form of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene

[xenor]

You can readily buy silicon, usually used for mould making from companies like http://www.barnes.com.au/ (An Australian company, but there are plenty more in the States). Can make darn near anything out of it.

[SmAsH!]

You do realize the majority of pc noise is from fans right?
The HDD makes up a small amount of noise so this isn't really effective unless your pc has no fans because its low power or your pc is water cooled.

[liknus]

If it is RaptorX at 10000 rpm then much of the noise comes from the hdd :) Believe me :P

[KayDat]

Shouldn't the HDD be grounded simply by connecting power already? The molex connector has 5V, 12V and two ground connections.

[SmAsH!]

Indeed it is.

[computer_freak_8]

I came across this and was just wondering: What model of computer case is this? It looks similar to two of my computer cases, but it isn't identical to either... and not knowing is driving me nuts!

[Yerboogieman]

what if your case doesn't store the HD like that?

[ReCreate]

The ground is not required, It is already included in the 4 pin molex connector connected to the HDD, in fact, there are 2 ground cables in it.

[Yerboogieman]

This is like what they had on lifehacker but cheaper.

[livesteamfan]

Why ground the HDD? It will work without being grounded. Also, what kind of case is that?

[downgrade]

Because grounding it prevents it from being shocked by static or when reaching in to move it for upgrades/repairs.

[Whatnot]

Obviously a HD is already grounded by the powerplug and the data cable's grounds, so it's a bit superfluous.

[cgosh]

No hard drives should ever be moved while they're spinning (unless you LIKE head crashes). If you have a laptop, and you carry it around while it's running do yourself a favor; set the Control Panel, Power Options to stop the hard drive whenever you close the lid. Then, when you want to carry it around without Shutting Down, just close the lid to stop the drive. When you open the lid again, it springs back to life in 3 seconds. You'll never miss a beat. If you're moving your desktop around while it's running you're just asking for trouble. The section of your hard drive (read, 'your stuff') being vaporized might never be missed (perhaps it's the Help file for some little-used app on printing upside down or whatever) but if it's a critical file (like a Windows file) you'll wish you'd never moved the box. When you scrape a sector, it's gone. The only thing standing between the read head and the platter (spinning about 100 revs per second) is the cushion of air that's produced by the platter spinning. One small bump, and the air is not enough to prevent a head crash. If you get the chance, pop open the drive bay on any Panasonic ToughBook laptop. They have a gel barrier to protect the drive. Ordinary laptops are running barefoot. This instructable cushions against shock on a desktop, but why take the chance?

[Sandisk1duo]

Apply pressure to the straps as you bolt them in, have 8 straps, four mounted to the top, four to the bottom (each exerting pressure)

[dchall8]

I hate it when I'm not hep to your jive, but HDD stands for hhhard...drrrrivvve ...d...d...d...something??? Anyone? A little help, please. When I come to power, all acronyms will have to be spelled out at least once.

[jinventive]

HDD stands for Hard Disk Drive

[dchall8]

Ohhhhhh, thanks. I guess the classic term, "hard drive," in use for decades, was confusing.

[CameronSS]

I hope I don't reopen an old debate, but...

Actually, HD is a bit confusing now. The new version differentiates between a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and SSD (Solid State Drive).

[static]

In the beginning I believed they where called Winchester drives

[fepede]

In the beginning they were called winchester because one of the first hard disk (IBM if I'm not wrong) has the same model number of a winchester gun, so the name !

[Spokehedz]

(removed by author or community request)

[static]

LOL the comment you made fits the definition of troll more so, than the question you labeled as a troll.

[dchall8]

SEE! Even the guy with nothing more constructive to do than call people names calls it a "hard drive." The first public clue that I thought it might be a hard drive was when I called it a hard drive in my original question. It was just the three-letter-acronym that was not familiar to me. I thought there might be more information in the unknown D in the three letters, but I guess not. Not trolling. Unlike you who seem to be discouraging people from asking honest questions, I was just trying to improve the quality of Instructables. I used to have people working for me who wrote instruction manuals for medical research equipment and test facilities. Granted, this Instructable does not require the same high standard of writing as life-or-death equipment does, but IPDKWYTA (if people don't know what you're talking about), they can't know if they're interested in the benefit of your knowledge.

[Spokehedz]

Everybody who saw this instructable--except for you--knew and understood everything that was going on here. They either knew that HDD == HD or they saw the pictures and figured it out.

You decided to nitpick ONE thing in the entire article, then make a snarky comment about using the 'classic' term HDD. There was absolutely no reason to be that snarky. None.

[dchall8]

I, too, figured out it was a hard drive. I decided to ask one question about what the acronym meant. Most people ask one question without getting jumped on. That's what the "be nice" policy is intended for. What on Earth are you so upset about? If my point has not been lost in your vendetta, it was that if you spell out your terminology, at least once, you may have more readers but you won't get people like me who clicked on it simply to find out what an HDD was. I'm now sorry I was so inquisitive. I wonder if liknus is tearing his/her hair out because you won't let this go? I know I am. I'll tell you what. I'm tire of your tirade. I'm going to flag every one of your reactive posts in these comments. You can go ahead and flag mine. We can let the Instructible Gods sort out who was right, who was wrong, and who was in the gray area. Happy Flagging!

[trebuchet03]

No worries - questions are always good.... Sure, everyone got it was a hard drive (I'll bet even you did :p) - and apparently, almost everyone got the point of your question and humor....

I, for one, laughed at the rhetoric and irony of how you got to this post :p

[dchall8]

Yeah, this certainly did take off in a direction I never anticipated. I was real hesitant to mention it but I didn't know what snarky meant. My spell checker flags it and nobody I know (including my friendly reading teacher), has heard the word. Wikipedia was no help, but Google defined it as a colloquialism meaning short-tempered or snappish. So I'm not sure that applies, but anyway. We've had enough fun defining HDDs. I'm better educated now in many ways - which is why I hang with this website.

[baneat]

I always thought HDD was the old-skool term for them

[Jake Turner]

Let's lay off the trolling comments fellas. We use Hard Disk Drive over HD nowadays, because now we live in the High Definition era, and asking i.e. if your Dreamcast supports H(ard) D(isks) can be confusing if you don't specify that you're not asking about High Definition. And no, Dreamcasts cannot use HDDs or output HD signals.