Thick rubber bands for silent hard drive mount?

I used this to mount a laptop hard drive to a desktop. In the article they used pencils to support the bands on the sides. Unfortunately when you do this, it is hard to put the drive cage back. I used the holes around the drive cage to mount the drive.

In my experience, once you install the drive, it seems rather stable, but not as stable as a standard installation. I don't think it should be an issue as long as you don't move the computer around alot and use good quality rubber bands.

Concerning the sound, I did not get a chance to hear the difference since the laptop drive is already pretty quiet in comparison to the rest of the computer. The reason I used the bands in the first place so to avoid buying an adaptor kit.

I purchased a Antec case called the P150 that has installed rubberbands to do just what you are talking about. they were installed in the 3.5 bay area. I let you put it in the bands or use the screwless mount. I figured since I have a high power harddrive I should use the bands.
They were nice, they cut the noise down and I enjoyed them very much until they started to crack and finally broke after 2 months of use. I'm very happy it didnt bust up my HDD to bad.

As long as they are high quality thick rubber bands they will last a while.

But a better idea I think would be to get a few of the real small bungie straps. Take the hooks off and run them through the openings in you drive cage and tie knots in the ends to keep em there. May not work in all cages and I haven't tried it myself but it should work quite well. Basicly the same system Antec uses in the p150.

Glad i could be of help, just make sure you tie the knots tight enough they don't give, and checking them on a semi-regular basis wouldn't be a bad idea.

As long as they are high quality thick rubber bands they will last a while.

But a better idea I think would be to get a few of the real small bungie straps. Take the hooks off and run them through the openings in you drive cage and tie knots in the ends to keep em there. May not work in all cages and I haven't tried it myself but it should work quite well. Basicly the same system Antec uses in the p180.

wow, thats a great idea and that will most certainly solve the problem of drying out rubber.

I will check walmart and hard ware stores for bungies that might accomplish that.

Just a little warning. Hard mounting a HDD to a chassis (case) reduces HDD vibration by constraining the HDDs motion. Isolation mounting, acomplished by inserting some elastomeric medium (neoprene washers, "rubber bands", "bungy cords", silicon pads etc) actually allows the HDD to move more . Unconstrained motion in a HDD can lead to premature failure due to increased wear, resonance fatigue etc.

Im not trying to disuade you, just to let you know this can reduce your HDDs life expectancy so you dont wake up to a suprise some day.

there is also the solution of putting a slice of rubber between the drive and the case, and using a screw with a spring: it reduces drive movement when you tighten the screws, but also absorbs some of the vibrations.

It's true letting a drive vibrate too much would be detrimental; if you suspend it using rubber bands, it will also increase said movement (due to swinging) and reduce its life expectancy.

Well, as to how I found that out, my degree is in mechanical engineering, with some extra electives in vibration analysis. I’ve worked in an organization for the past 15 years which uses computerized equipment that is highly vibration prone and has to deal with that. And, I’ve been working the past 9 months on a personal project, part of which includes soft mounting multiple 3.5"HDDs to minimize vibration transmission. I’ve studied a bunch of commercially available stuff; including the “rubber blocks” you mentioned as well as some of the “rubber band” style mounts. None met the requirements of the project, so I was forced to design my own.

As for why maximum PC magazine and Antec didn’t consider vibration, I can’t say for sure. I can only guess:
1) It takes a lot less expertise to design a standard consumer PC case than it takes to design a HDD itself. In short, they simply may not have considered it.
2) Vibration in commercial static enclosures and chassis’s has only come into consideration over the past few years, and has been primarily aimed at noise reduction. Little attention has been given to the consequences, in other words, they probably have no experience with the problem.
3) PC HDD isolation products haven’t been out long enough for significant numbers of HDD failures to occur and give accurate data sets yet.

Vibration design concerns for military and mobile applications i.e. shipboard/aircraft/automotive/railway etc computer systems, have been around a very long time. Here the consequences of unconstrained vibration are much better known. Unfortunately, designing effective vibration isolation systems is a much more complex task and drives the enclosure/chassis cost up significantly. To apply that technology to a PC case could effectively double its size and quadruple its price.

Additionally, in a lot of mobile installations, HDDs as we know them are not used, and so those systems are not subject to the same considerations. It depends on the application. In some cases, permanent fixed memory is used, (ROM) while others use EPROM. Some others in aircraft and combat vehicles for instance, use a form of a RAM based system where the operating system and all data is loaded into volatile memory (RAM) prior to flight/operation, so there is no need to power up or access permanent memory HDD/FDD during operation. Once the system is turned of, all data is lost, and the system must be reloaded prior to its next use.

As for how much the HDDs life expectancy might be reduced, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what to expect. All I can say is the "softer" or more flexible the method you use the greater the reduction in life expectancy will be

Is it worth it? Personally, I think it is, but I am also willing to compromise. The rubber block system you used was fairly rigid. The rubber band method is fairly flexible. Opposites. Personally, I would look for a solution somewhere in the middle. Neoprene or soft silicone mounts. But those can be very expensive. Additionally, some of the stuff I’ve seen advertised (especially in silicone) is total crap.

If you have a 5 year warranty, I wouldn’t worry about it to much... If the drive craps out early, you’re covered. But I would definitely, definitely back up the critical data every once in awhile.

Well, as to how I found that out, my degree is in mechanical engineering, with some extra electives in vibration analysis. I’ve worked in an organization for the past 15 years which uses computerized equipment that is highly vibration prone and has to deal with that. And, I’ve been working the past 9 months on a personal project, part of which includes soft mounting multiple 3.5"HDDs to minimize vibration transmission. I’ve studied a bunch of commercially available stuff; including the “rubber blocks” you mentioned as well as some of the “rubber band” style mounts. None met the requirements of the project, so I was forced to design my own.

As for why maximum PC magazine and Antec didn’t consider vibration, I can’t say for sure. I can only guess:
1) It takes a lot less expertise to design a standard consumer PC case than it takes to design a HDD itself. In short, they simply may not have considered it.
2) Vibration in commercial static enclosures and chassis’s has only come into consideration over the past few years, and has been primarily aimed at noise reduction. Little attention has been given to the consequences, in other words, they probably have no experience with the problem.
3) PC HDD isolation products haven’t been out long enough for significant numbers of HDD failures to occur and give accurate data sets yet.

Vibration design concerns for military and mobile applications i.e. shipboard/aircraft/automotive/railway etc computer systems, have been around a very long time. Here the consequences of unconstrained vibration are much better known. Unfortunately, designing effective vibration isolation systems is a much more complex task and drives the enclosure/chassis cost up significantly. To apply that technology to a PC case could effectively double its size and quadruple its price.

Additionally, in a lot of mobile installations, HDDs as we know them are not used, and so those systems are not subject to the same considerations. It depends on the application. In some cases, permanent fixed memory is used, (ROM) while others use EPROM. Some others in aircraft and combat vehicles for instance, use a form of a RAM based system where the operating system and all data is loaded into volatile memory (RAM) prior to flight/operation, so there is no need to power up or access permanent memory HDD/FDD during operation. Once the system is turned of, all data is lost, and the system must be reloaded prior to its next use.

As for how much the HDDs life expectancy might be reduced, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what to expect. All I can say is the "softer" or more flexible the method you use the greater the reduction in life expectancy will be

Is it worth it? Personally, I think it is, but I am also willing to compromise. The rubber block system you used was fairly rigid. The rubber band method is fairly flexible. Opposites. Personally, I would look for a solution somewhere in the middle. Neoprene or soft silicone mounts. But those can be very expensive. Additionally, some of the stuff I’ve seen advertised (especially in silicone) is total crap.

If you have a 5 year warranty, I wouldn’t worry about it to much... If the drive craps out early, you’re covered. But I would definitely, definitely back up the critical data every once in awhile.

Wow, I don't mean to be corny, but it is truly an honor to have you a true expert and professional replying to my post on the subject.

I would say if you do find the perfect solution to your studies/experiments to apply for a patent and submit it to some major case vendors/designers for some quick cash, I know a lot of people would love having the perfect solution to this problem/issue.

As for what I'm going to do, I'm not sure a lot to think about, it's been overwhelming the amount of replies and ideas to my inquiry. I may try the rubber band approach for a moment just to see the difference. the reason why I want to silence my drive is well my drive i s a 7200.8 seagate and its quite loud when reading and writing. My case amplifies this quite nicely and I was hoping isolating the drive from the case would help a lot. But so far it hasn't really. This right now is what im using:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817991002 and it doesn't work very well ive been having al ot of difficulting finding out how to mount it correctly as it doesn't have instructions.

Thanks again, Chad

I personally haven't noticed a problem with hard drive noise. I have a Raptor and a pair of Western Digital 250GBs and I think they're all really quiet - and the Raptor is always going, so I notice it but it doesn't bother me. Although, there are a few products that might help, and they're just a few bucks each...

Insulation Strips

These are the rubber strips mentioned, where you sandwich them between the drive and the rack, then screw the drives in. They can also be used on optical and floppy drives, by the way.

3.5" - 5.25" converters

These beasts turn your hard drive into a 5.25" drive - attach the adapters onto the sides of the drive, leave the bay cover in the case and screw the drive in like it was an optical drive.

Padded rooms FTW!

This is like wallpaper made to insulate noise. You just measure how much you need, cut it to fit the walls of your case, take off the backing, and stick it to the inside. Also cover your drive cages with it, to deaden vibration in important parts of your case.

It's more like 4 to 5 years. Not weeks. That's why I said use good quality rubber bands.

Just use rubber grommets between the case and the HDD

Rubber Grommets sound like the best route to go. Wouldn't kill off the noise entirely, but would surely help

Go to a hardware store. Buy some rubber gromets with a center hole just large enough for the hdd screw to pass through. Drill out the attachment holes large enough to put the gromet in if required. That will isolate the drive and attachment screws from the case and it will never fall. Rubber bands and pencils sound too much like bubble gum and bailing wire to me. Too many possibilities of failure unless you don't care about your data.

Sarcasm.

[sarcrasm]Hard to convey it with text, I'll try harder next time.[/sarcasm]