Har Drive Silencing.

If the noise is the whine from the drive motor, isolating it may not help.  I had a Gateway PC and the OEM hard drive (a Western Digital drive) was noisy.  I replaced it with a new drive, also a Western Digital, and the new drive was quiet.  Didn't have to do any isolation.

I have Western Digital and Hitachi hard drives in my new DAW system and they are both quiet.  The hard drives in my Corsair Carbide case are mounted with plastic inserts that slide into chassis slots.

Colin - I bought a Fractal R3 case (now superseded by the R4) for noise reduction mainly so I didn't have a racket in the background while narrating videos. ;-)

That has rubber mounts for HD enclosures. TBH I was astounded by the noise reduction. Previously I'd used the highly technical method of throwing a quilt over the case.....

After putting my system in the R3 and turning on I had to double check it was working. It is silent..... and I mean silent, there's a very faint humming with my ear against the case but that's it.

That said I do have a quiet cooler and quiet case fan as well though so I'm sure the noise of the parts will make a difference but the A/B difference between the two cases with the same internals was frankly astounding.

Wish I'd have done it years ago.

Rubber grommets here, nice and quiet.

timidi

Previously I'd used the highly technical method of throwing a quilt over the case.....

Hi Karl, How long were you good to go like that. 5 min? 20Min?
I mean, I'm sure it may be a testy situation. But, Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.....

I never had any issues but I did leave a venting area at the back of the case and I also have a big old cooler on the cpu. It worked okay for reducing levels but it was never what I'd call silent. I would run for several hours like that. I'd been toying with the idea of a case upgrade but being tight fisted always put it off in favour of the more makeshift quilt method.
 
The video gave me an excuse to buy the case and I was genuinely shocked at the difference it made, it was far more effective than I ever imagined it would be. The only way I can tell if my system is on now is by looking at it for the power light. It is almost completely silent unless my ear is right next to it.
 
I also have a quiet cooler fan and no fans on my graphics cards though so there are other considerations for complete silence. The Fractal case I bought also has a case speed fan control that mounts in one of the case slots, so it's possible to slow the case fan right down when needed and have it higher for general use. I mildly overclock and even with the fan up on high I have to be very close to hear it. 

If you want to know if isolation from contact with the case will help without a lot of trouble, dismount the drive, dangle it temporarily from its power cable and see if it is quiet(er). The advantage of suspending the drive, rubber pads bands, grommets etc. is that it keeps certain frequencies from being transferred to the case, and acoustically amplified/radiated by the case vibration. More likely to work on lower frequency noise in most cases (no pun intended). So the clackety clack of noisy head movement may be easier to control that way than the whine of the drive motor.

If you want to see if the drive is the source of the noise you can disconnect its power and leave it in place. Of for a more elegant test, see if the drive manufacturer's utility program has an "acoustic test" that spins the drive down and up again while you listen.

Most drive full spec sheets actually include a noise level rating. For audio work, it is probably worth looking for quieter drives in the first place.

There is always a trade off between noise dampening and cooling. One possible solution.

A few options I've used over the years:

Current - 7200 rpm drives reckoned pretty quiet to start with (Samsung F3 and a WD) in Grow Up Japan (how's that for a strange company name?) HDD silencer boxes. These are attached loosely (loose bolts one side, padding to support on the other) into 5.25" drive bays at the front/top of the tower, with an empty drive slot between them for ventilation (the case fan is at the rear blowing air forwards into the case).
 
This is very quiet, but not cheap and took a lot of expermenting and temperature monitoring to get the case airflow right. Drive temperatures are a little high, but nothing alarming.

Overall, the drives are audible but not to the extent it interferes with mics at all. The whole PC measures around 27dBa @1 metre unless the video card is stressed (it isn't when using Sonar)..

One thing to note - if these kind of drive cases are fitted tightly into a bay you'll get much less drive motor noise than if the drive was bare, but the clicks from seeking won't be silenced much.

Until fairly recently I'd used Seagate Barracudas for years, but they seem to have got louder and less reliable as newer models come along.

Earlier setups I've used are drives suspended by silicone string in a 3.5" bay, with the drives vertical. Not as quiet as above, but pretty effective. It's fiddly to get the drives suspended securely and they tend to move/bounce around if you move the case though.

Drives lying on the bottom of the case on a layer of foam. About as effective as suspending (as both isolate the drive from the case chassis, so noise isn't transmitted into the case from the drive), but the drives can get a bit warm.

Just an update.

I've been in contact with Carillon who supplied the machine and talked to them about silencing.

The reason they don't do it as standard - so they say - is because it will increase the heat and thus reduce the life of the hard disk.


But, they have offered to takes the machine back and retrofit all 3 drives with a silent enclosure free of charge.


All I have to do is pay for the postage there & back.


I'll be without my machine for a week or so, but I think it's probably worth it.


Opinions?