Loud Hard Drive....

[WayneD]

I have two hard drives a Maxtor 20GB(ATA133) and a WD 40GB(ATA100) which are both making an awfull lot of noise. Over the past two years I have gone managed to get my system running reasonably quiet with my only remaining problem the now loud HDD's. The drives have always been loud but in the face of previous CPU coolers which sounded like a 747 in full thottle take off mode they were silent. Now that the CPU cooler is in fact silent it is clear the HDD's generate a fair amount of noise on their own.

My problem could perhaps be solved with a new HDD but I am resisting this is there anything I can do to silence the drives short of shuting them off or replacing them?

[BipolarBill]

I doubt that you can silence them. You can't enclose them because they would overheat.

You should "bite the bullet" and get one new Maxtor 80GB drive if it bothers you that much.

[naptownman]

I was able to use some firm rubber washers between the HD body and the cage in my case to help isolate some of the vibration/noise that would be transmitted to the case itself. This dropped my noise a few db to where now I can hear the bearings in my old WD 40 gig start to growl and squeal. If it isn't one thing, it's another!

[WayneD]

Thanks, if I were to upgrade my HDD in my Asus A7N8X 2.0 deluxe what is the fastest HDD available for me.

[Johnny Fist]

I don't know what the fastest hard drive for that board would be. Its probably one of those SATA drives. However, I am fairly certain that with a slight bit of effort on your part you can READ THE MANUAL that came with the motherboard and it'll tell you.

[BipolarBill]

Wayne - fast is not quiet. Which will it be?

[carp_e]

Yo WayneD,
The source of your noise is most likely the "bearings" of your motor, which are typically fluid these days. Isolating the drive from the casing with soft rubber or foam, like naptownman suggests, may prevent your casing from amplifying the noise.

carp

[naptownman]

Most of the lower end small capacity drives didn't and still don't today use fluidized bearings. Maxtor doens't offer a fluid bearing hard drive below 60 GB.

But the point is the bearings are making noise and you either have to mask it or isolate it or both. Or better yet, get some new quiet. drives.

[WayneD]

Of all the advice I got on this subject yours has given me the greatest insight into what is the root cause of my problem. I was not aware the hardware specs had changed or that fluid bearing were available. It would seem my best bet is to upgrade to newer drives...

Thank you so much for your input....

WayneD