Silencing a hard drive

    The problem of hard disk noise insulation appeared at once after my silent computer had rid itself of all the coolers. Heretofore the squeak and chatter of heads were inaudible over the coolers noise. Let’s try to look into the essence of the Winchester noise to know the enemy by sight. First of all it is the low-frequency vibration – the result of wrong spindle balancing. Secondly, it is the repugnant high-frequency squeak which is produced by the heads hovering on the air cushion over the plates. And finally there goes the chatter of the saddle which moves these heads along the plates. The result is obscure; the noise is repugnant with obnoxious for hearing high-frequency and low frequency components… Only a man who hasn’t worked on a noiseless computer in a silent room will argue with me. I presume to remark that I speak not about antique hardware but modern branded products with 300 Gb capacity.

   The existence of such problem and user’s desire to get rid of this unpleasant sound are proved by variety of factory-made and homemade devices that are used to control hard disk noise. It is proved scientifically that high-frequency and low-frequency technogenic sounds affect negatively the human psyche. But.., our web site is not medical, so we’re not going to draw a parallel between stress, headache and fanless computers. Though I’m sure there is such effect. After the cure of my e-friend of accessory sound I felt much better… You may not believe me but I don’t remember when I had a headache last time caused by the so-called “magnetic storms”.

   Thus, let’s proceed to the extermination of hard disk noise. Let’s formulate our task. The first thing we should do is to put the humming device away to a sealed and sound-isolated box. The second most important, difficult and obligatory thing to do is to remove heat from it so that the hard disk wouldn’t overheat and fell out in an hour of operating in such thermos flask.
I recommend you strongly not to neglect the second point. Hard drive will overheat and get out of order in an hour or two of running.