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Silencing a Hard Drive Using Household Items

Posted by kdawson on from the bread-olives-and-silence dept.

Reader Justblair recommends his blog entry detailing how he made a hard drive silencer for a pittance. "This article demonstrates a very easy-to-make hard drive silencer that not only outperforms most commercially available devices, but is cheaper to implement as well. Requiring very little in fabrication skills, it is an ideal addition to a media PC or HTPC. It may even suit you if your head is aching after many hours of being whined at by your hard drive."

13 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Haven't read TFA by bcmm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does it involve bludgeoning with any number of common household items?

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Haven't read TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Does it involve bludgeoning with any number of common household items?

      Only if you use reiserfs on the disk.

    2. Re:Haven't read TFA by jimdread · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, he put the hard drive in a big aluminium case, with those gel cooling bags surrounding the drive. Sorry, I just spoiled the whole thing. That's pretty much all it says.

    3. Re:Haven't read TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      too soon.

  2. i have never found hard drive noise a problem by wjh31 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the fans are the noisiest part of my computer, and always have been on any computer ive ever had. However i do occationally hear the click-click of the head moving, but never the whine of the platters, will this sort that out too?

    ive seen another hard drive silencing technique elsewhere that's even cheaper, although possibly not quite as effective, which is simply to mount it with rubber bands in a 5.25" bay rather than screws.
    http://www.spodesabode.com/archive/content/article/hddnoise

    1. Re:i have never found hard drive noise a problem by tsjaikdus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, sulky, then apply this technology to your fans. Put them in a box, pour in a lot of cooling gel and voila.

    2. Re:i have never found hard drive noise a problem by urbanriot · · Score: 5, Informative

      I second your suggestion to use rubber grommets. Even the loudest 10k raptor drives are silenced by long screws in rubber grommets. Antec knows this, that's why they include them with almost every single one of their chassis. Chenbro uses some screws with rubber pads on them as well.

    3. Re:i have never found hard drive noise a problem by sbeckstead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find the key to keeping fan noise down is to wear noise canceling headphones and turn the pocket radio up slightly. Voila no fan noise and I can watch the game with a nice commentary to boot. This even works to quiet wife noise and kid noise. No messy gels involved.

      --
      Why bother
    4. Re:i have never found hard drive noise a problem by sbeckstead · · Score: 5, Funny

      >Larger slower fans are pretty much the key for noise to displacement ratio.

      Much easier to outrun but they do more damage if they catch you.

      --
      Why bother
    5. Re:i have never found hard drive noise a problem by Webs+101 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Grommets are always silent, but what starts to grate on me is the whining and grumbling from the Wallace.

      --

      "Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward

  3. Solution by NXprime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or you could just buy some newer hard drives out there with high ariel density. WD 640GB AAKS model & 1TB drives are practically dead silent. That or buy some SSD's. Really this noise issue is beginning to lose importance these days and that's the point I'm trying to make here.

  4. Re:RTA, he does suspend them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    He embeds them in gel and he suspends them with elastic.

    Kinky!

  5. Re:Maybe it's just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Generally, people who can hear the high-pitched whine of a TV or the whine of transformers can also hear hard drives whine and find all the whining noise annoying. People going deaf won't know what the hell I am talking about.