Hiyas I'm busying looking into making my machine as quiet as possilbe for those overnight downloads and am wondering if this idea is at all viable. I've got a WD 80G 7200 drive, and I am considering removing the screw mountings, and placing it on a bed of the insulating foam stuff that things like you mobo comes packed in. Looks similar to the sound insulation kits anyways, so I thought this might work. I dont plan on housing the whole drive in it, as I am sure it'll bang up the drive temps, I just want to lay it on a bed of the stuff to get rid of vibration. Are there any dangers I might be overlooking? Cheers

other then if the moter of the drive has its baring outside the drive and you build up heat. why not try moving the system into mybe a Closet if there is enough ventalation

your idea is a good one. WD drives are the loudest, and they get louder as they get hotter. If you can direct some airflow onto the drive while its laying on the foam that will help. By removing it from the mounting you: - increase heat by eliminating the heatsink effect that the mounting gives it - increase heat because half of it is now laying on foam - decrease noise The seagate barracuda 4 is still the quietest drive. Quieter than the Cuda 5. The latest samsung spinpoint is supposed to be even quieter during access, but still has a little whine.

No way!! All my WD's are quiet as a mouse. All my Maxtor's on the other hand sound like a coffee can full of marbles. They also have a nasty tendancy to die quite frequently as well. Either way if it's THAT loud then somthing is up. It should not be loud enough to justify modifications that may lead to overheating it to quiet it down. Jimi_l

way http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=29&page=1 http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php

Thanks for the links but it does not change the view from my house. Jimi_l

Cheers for the help I'm not saying that my drive is noisy, that I'll only be able to determine when I get my new fan and controller unit, but I figured I may as well if the implications arent too bad. I could easily mount an 80mm fan above the drive, hook it to the 12V\5V\0V switch on my controller, so I can turn it off when idling, and full blast when under heavy load. The set up I am going for is a 120mm YS-Tech side intake, 80mm TT Smart Fan 2 on my SK-7, A PCI Exhaust Fan and my HiPower 420W's exhaust fans. The PSU fans aside, I am going to hook all the others up to my controller unit, so I can silence my machine whilst overnight dling. Also removing the noisy N'Bridge cooler fan and get a Zalman passive heatsink for it. So come night-time, the 120mm goes OV (off), the TT Smart Fan and PCI Exhaust go minimum voltage and my PSU fans set to silent run mode. The only other thing I could think of that could still possibly make any noticable noise would be the HDD as it would still be doing some minor work while dling. Mind you, in this scenario, leaving the drive normally mounted may be quieter than going with the foam and running a fan blowing onto it at 5V... I think some testing will be in order come payday on friday ;)