Harddisk Silencer ?

R

^R3CoN

n00b
Joined
Nov 23, 2004
Messages
9
Hi guys,

I had a server with 9 harddisks in a chieftec midi-tower dragon series. But since a few days I don't have a game computer anymore, so now my server is located in my room. And now I can hear my harddisks.

Now I want to make harddisks silencers for all the harddisk so i can't hear the vibration anymore. But I don't know how to make a good silencer for the harddisks. In the good old days I used a rubber band where I hung my harddisk in. But I don't want such a ghetto solution for my server harddisks.

I am planning to remove the normal harddisk mountings.

Can someone please help me ?
 
how much are you looking to spend? the NoVibes III will absorb a lot of vibration, but at $25 each that'll add up quick for you...

edit: sorry, didn't notice that you want to MAKE some silencers. I guess you could rig something like the novibes if you can get your hands on some good elastic cord.
 
I was more thinking of some homebrew solution.

Btw. Sorry for my fucked up English :rolleyes:

Edit: Damn, you just took the words out my mouth ;), I am only wondering how do you attach your harddisk to the novibes ?
 
Hmm... I wonder is some sort of 'spring' solution could be used. if you have a mesh frame (for beter cooling) case with about 1.5cm space around each side for the hard drive to fit in, you could put two springs on each edge of the hard disk (working on how to attatch the springs still...:confused: ) and that way you hard drive will be suspended even if you tun your case on the side. Turning the case on the side is problematic with the 'rubber band' solution.
 
Here is an idea, but it would require quite a bit of work. You could make some sort of enclosure with foam to house the HDDs. Hold the HDD's up in the enclosure using rubber mounts or something of the sort. At the front of the enclosure, put 1 or 2 120mm yate loons at 7V. I can barely hear yates at 12V, so they should be dead silent at 7V.

More explained:
-You could build the enclosure out of a mesh (such as ACRyanMeshx).
-Inside the mesh, line it with foam. You can get some nice cheap foam sheets at home depot. I bought a few air conditioner sound vibration foam mats for about $15 and are quiet large.
-Somehow incorporate rubber around the screws to dampen the vibration. My case (TT Tsunami) has this built-in, and it works well.

With the amount of HDDs you have, cutting vibration will not be enough to be rid of the noise. Blocking the actual noise will help a lot, but you need to keep the entire thing ventilated.

The only problem is you would probably need to cut out the HDD racks in your server to fit such an enclosure. Perhaps you could make it external to the case.

Good luck.
 
Mmm.. I don't know about the foam idea.... Not much ventilation, unless you have some sort of honeycomb foam, that would allow for plenty of ventilation.
 
Evilot said:
Mmm.. I don't know about the foam idea.... Not much ventilation, unless you have some sort of honeycomb foam, that would allow for plenty of ventilation.
Click to expand...

Well, this is the purpose of the 120mm fan(s). You could have an entry for the air near the front, and an exit in the back. I guess I didn't explicitly say this. Anyway, the ventilation would be fine if you did this, and you would benefit from the foam as a sound dampener.

Just trying to help :).
 
The "secret" to vibration isolation is to provide as flexible a support as possible with substantial damping. Increasing the mass of the object is also useful.

Damping means a device like a shock absorber. However, it has to be attached to a solid object isolated from everything else and that is not usually practical.

Providing a flexible mount is easier and the limit on the flexibility is how much deflection you can tolerate. If the disk ends up hitting the case or drive enclosure, it's obviously too flexible. If you are going to use an elastic (like the bungie stuff on the NoVibes frame) experiment with various stiffnesses and see just how flexible you can get without problems. You should be able to get this kind of bungie in fabric stores or some outdoor gear shops (that caters to climbers and hikers, not hunters and fishermen). Marine shops also tend to have that.

If you bolted steel plates to the sides of the drive to increase the weight, that would help minimize vibration. The limit would be how strong the threaded holes are in the side of the drive. I don't think this is a high priority.

Obviously, you can "be influenced by" the design that NoVibe uses. If you go to a place that sells electrical supplies (even Home Depot would do), you can get plastic wire holders like the ones in this photo (the squares on the paper are 1/4" for reference). These can be bolted onto a frame to thread bungie through.

Check that NoVibe web site - they have a pdf file that shows how it's used and that should show you everything you need to make one.

Adding a layer of acoustic insulation to the inside of the case could help. Acoustic insulation is not the same as thermal insulation. Some types of carpet underlay are thin but heavy (in terms of weight) rubbery foam (the stuff I'm thinking of is dimpled and ugly brown) - that would be an effective sound dampener if hung inside. If you glue it everywhere, it won't dampen sound as much as if relatively free to move. Note that this would not work if most of the noise is getting out through the existing holes (for fans etc) in the case and it would increase the temperature in the case resulting in more air flow being required, so it might be useless. I've never tried it so...
 
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