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OT - noisy external hard drive issue

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Duster

(A)

I'm hoping to find some inexpensive acoustic isolation tips for a noisy external hard drive. I believe the mechanical noise from the drive and the noise from the fan would need to be addressed differently. Perhaps an adhesive backed automotive soundcoating sheet on the enclosure's top and side panels, and a ventilation tube (such as a vacuum cleaner hose) placed at the fan's output extending away from earshot would be advised?
Maybe place the drive within an acoustic insulation lined box with it's back opened up for air in-rush ventilation, fan out-rush, and cable connections? TIA

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Re: OT - noisy external hard drive issue - Waxed Ears 11:21:49 03/12/05 (0)
There's a great silent pc website that reviews tweaks, products, and mods. I've employed some of their methods to quieten my old Aopen ax6bc Pii-400. The 7 volt tweak is highly recommended as long as you can monitor Mobo and cpu temps.
- silent PC review (Open in New Window)
Re: OT - noisy external hard drive issue - pburke 12:21:21 03/09/05 (0)
the fan may be the main noise factor - you could probably find some heat-pipe based HD coolers that are fanless, or move to an enclosure that is set up as a heatsink to begin with (check newegg.com - mapower enclosures are essencially heat sinks. If you mount the drive to touch the enclosure you can disable the fan they come with. Then you can cover the drive with the soundcoating stuff.
I'm using these enclosures for my new DACs, which generate a ton of heat, but I don't have to use the fan at all. Adding a 100ohm series to the fan dropped the fan speed by quite a bit as well (essentially running a 12V fan at 6.5V), so if I need it, I can still use the fan, but it's almost silent.
Peter
- just one example (Open in New Window)
Identify the source of the noise first. - glennw 12:00:09 03/09/05 (0)
If it's the HD bearing, for example, I would recommend replacing the HD. Today's quietest drives use fluid dynamic bearings (look for "FDB" in the spec sheet). I routinely do this on noisy desktops and laptops and the result is far better than any soundcoating or other vibration dampening. Plus, you can often take a step up in terms of speed and/or capacity at the same time.
If the noise is mainly from the fan, PC Power and Cooling makes some pretty darned quiet fans. You might start there, and see if you still need to do anything else. Cheapest thing you could do.
I would be very careful about putting an external HD enclosure inside another box. Heat kills hard drives.
Good luck!

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