I just installed an old IDE hard drive for kicks today. Works a treat, I may use it for VSTi installations or large sound libraries or something.. not sure yet, but it's only 120GB, so not much I can do with it otherwise. Maybe I'll go back to running Ubuntu on it for the fun of it!
 
However, given that my "studio" triples as my tracking room, editing/mixing room, AND bedroom, the tower is just a bit too noisy for my needs. (Admittedly, I've got bigger problems in this room than a noisy tower - there's a window by my desk which lies adjacent to a rather busy road 150ft from my house... good amount of noise there!)
But given that this is something that I can maybe IMMEDIATELY do something about... anyone got any tips?
 
I've thought of just disabling the drive whenever I'm not planning to use it on boot. But that could be tedious and potentially dangerous for the drive, eh?
 
It'll be cool I think - just gotta find a good reason to keep this thing around! 120gb ain't much to work with these days 

My first thought was to put it in an external enclosure and only plug it in to the system when you specifically need it. It's IDE, so I am guessing external IDE boxes might be hard to find, but its the first thing I'd consider trying.

Amicus717
My first thought was to put it in an external enclosure and only plug it in to the system when you specifically need it. It's IDE, so I am guessing external IDE boxes might be hard to find, but its the first thing I'd consider trying.

That's a good idea - I actually had one a couple years ago, but it got trashed. Might be a good thought if no "better" suggestions come through 

Yes they are real hard to track down now. I have a real old one and if it dies I'll have a dozen old drives I might as well toss out. That said, I just bought a WD 1 TB USB 3.0 external for $79 on sale at Radio Shack ( The Source).
I just copied 23 GB of files and I was blown away on how fast this was.
I think you can get them cheaper in the States.
 
Anyhow, I think the old IDE drives are just not worth the bother at this point, they are energy hogs and sometimes noisy.
Most noise from a PC tower is fans. Buy some bigger, slower fans.
 
 
 

Cactus Music
Anyhow, I think the old IDE drives are just not worth the bother at this point, they are energy hogs and sometimes noisy.
Most noise from a PC tower is fans. Buy some bigger, slower fans.
 

Haha, true day, Cactus. I think I'll still keep it around for fun just for running Ubuntu... Which will actually ony be once in a blue moon. Mattafact, I'll install a bunch of OS's on it just for the sake of having fun quad- or quinti-booting  Then I can always disable the port in the BIOS until I decide I want to crack a differnt OS open again...
 
 
Not sure why. Trying OS's and stuff is something I used to do as a kid (from 7 - 11 years ago), along with making customized themes for jailbroken iPhones and all that. Had fun with it... maybe I still will 
 
I have considered going for liquid cooling as far as noise reduction, but how do those do on sound? The tower rests right on the thick shag carpet floor. Is there maybe any sort of pad that can go under the tower to help this though? 

Give the IDE to some kid doing a science experiment on how hdisks work... External case is a good idea though... Shop for a tower case that has drive trays with soft silicon isomounts. That quiets things down a LOT.

Best thing you can do is to do a DOD wipe on that drive. Then pull it out and donate it to any one of dozens of worthy causes that need and readily accept working computer equipment. Then skip the Starbucks for a couple weeks and buy yourself an SSD with the money you save.

As I said, fans are where the noise comes from, if you can hear a hard drive time to toss it out. 
I have only one SATA 7200 RPM in my DAW now, the other 2 are both SSD so dead quiet. And the SATA drive only spins up when I use it which is for back up. 
 
See how many fans you have, should only be 3 as Hard drives no longer need cooling. 
The CPU fan can be the loudest as that's where the most heat is and they are often very small fans. Bigger slower fans mover more air without the hi pitched noise which is what gets out. 
On my last DAW I pulled the little CPU fan and hung a 7" fan pointing at the CPU and that not only cooled it down better it made things a lot quieter. This build I bough all parts that were recommended for cool and quiet. 
I cannot hear my computer unless it's a hot day and it's working hard and the fans speed up. 
There's plenty of info on how to build a quiet computer. 

I grabbed one of these a few years ago.  Works great for connecting old IDE drives with USB.
 
Rosewill RX35-AT-IU BLK - Aluminum 3.5" Black IDE USB 2.0 External Enclosure   $19^.99
https://www.newegg.com/Pr...x?Item=N82E16817182153

Here are some tips on building a quiet PC.
 
Silent, But Deadly: Build Your Own Gaming-Ready 0 dB PC
http://www.tomshardware.c...-performance,3435.html