I am always looking for ways to make my computer quieter, cooler and consume less energy (usually they are all one in the same). On that note, here is an interesting walkthrough on how to build your own hard drive silencing enclosure.
The idea is quite simple: sandwich a hard drive between two layers of gel packs which will absorb the sound and vibrations. One thing you will want to be sure of if you try this method is to make sure there is enough ventilation to allow heat from the drive to escape.
When you think about it, fastening a hard drive via screws to a rigid metal case is pretty stressful on a hard drive as the case isn’t going to give much to absorb the vibrations of the drive. At the very least, if you can put rubber gromments around the screw connecting to the hard drive, this will help reduce the vibrations some.
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However, one needs to be careful that the drive is not suspended too loosely, or it might start to oscillate.
Likewise, the cables need to be free to move sufficiently to prevent flex-induced fractures.
Or you could just use a Samsung hard drive and have a very quiet drive already. I can only imagine when that gel pack breaks and you lose all your data… Besides Samsung Hard drives are cheap now…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152098
That pretty extreme for quieting hard drive but I’m sure it works very well. For me, the quietest moving part on my pc is the hard drive.
If rubber gromments are not enough, you better look for another harddisk, there is more than enough choise.