Is there any way to actually quieten down a server/pro hard drive?

Golf1.6

Golf1.6

Golf1.6

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I was about to take a pluge on seagate ironwolf pro 16TB hard drives - I never owned a server grade drive before. But stopped because I started hearing how loud they are. Apparently they are loud mechanically and you wouldnt want your home server in the same room as you with the drives installed. You'd want them away anywhere you're sleeping/working/resting.

I dont like the idea of putting my server hidden away somewhere out of sight because I just feel that I can monitor the server if I am seeing it daily.

Is there a good sound insulated case or drive cage that can quieten a server drive down? I know nas drives tend to fit directly onto the rails. By desktop cases such an the antec p280 (ancient) have drives sitting on rubber gromet. The aren't side screwed. the are screwed in from the bottom and sit in place by mavity rather than being force fitted by screw. So they essentially just sit on top of rubber grommets - they are "mavity fitted" and the screws are a measure of last resort.

I was hoping that I could just build a custom NAS case with the hard drive array from the good sound insualted desktop case - or is that still not going to be sufficient for a NAS drive.

I heard the quitest large capacity drive is WD red plus 12tb (the other capacity drives are noisy). I am actually thinking of downgrading in performance/longevity to the wd red plus instead of ironworld pro 16tb just to keep the noise down.
 
A common modification (at least on synology hot swappable trays) is to use a pair of patches on each of the long sides of each drive tray or on the guides on the inside of the drive cage (e.g. fluffy velcro type tape) to act as sound dampers.

I have this on my DS920 with WD Gold drives and it is a notable reduction (though I used a high grade automotive anti-rattle tape as I already had that available).

I also have the NAS stood on a set of 3D dampers to further reduce noise transmission.

How important the damping is will be dependent on how often the drives are used, mine are mostly in use for a short period every hour to copy changed files off the PC and as a media server and I barely notice it unless I am doing something with multi gigabyte files and it's less than a meter from where I sit.
 
I have 4 16TB Ironwolf Pro drives in a DS920 and when it powers up it sounds like a bag of gravel in a tumble dryer. I just have it in a room I rarely use in the house.
 
Depends on the drives you are buying, higher end mechanical drives will run at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm but some server drives will only be 7,200 the same as typical desktop drives.

Even standard desktop drives can be loud if you have a bunch of them setup in raid.

If its going in the middle of your living room and you can't get affordable SSD in the capacity you want the next best option would be drives running at 5,200 rpm as often found in NAS or CCTV systems.
 
Over the years I've tried all sorts including 'silent' cases and drives on trays with isolating grommets. The bungee approach is the one that has made the biggest difference.
 
NetMan said:
Depends on the drives you are buying, higher end mechanical drives will run at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm but some server drives will only be 7,200 the same as typical desktop drives.

Even standard desktop drives can be loud if you have a bunch of them setup in raid.

If its going in the middle of your living room and you can't get affordable SSD in the capacity you want the next best option would be drives running at 5,200 rpm as often found in NAS or CCTV systems.
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Really? Which drives run at over 7,200 rpm these days?
 
I have an array of 12 iron wolf drives. Couldn't tell you how loud they are as everything else in the server room is deafening :p but for what it's worth, they are 7200rpm

Back in the day, having 10k Raptors in a tinny case on your desk wasn't uncommon
 
I've got 8x18TB EXOS drives in a node 804 and 2x18 western digital external drives. Are they noisy, honestly no noisier than my old hard drives from a few years back imo most of the time, but they are audible compared with a quiet build. It's mainly the initial start up which is noisiest, it's not that bad when they're actually doing read/write.
 
I have both of these in my PC:

Smart Drive Classic SATA HDD Silencer

The Smart Drive Classic SATA HDD Silencer offers an almost total elimination of running noise from a conventional spindle hard disk and also assists with cooling it safely.
www.quietpc.com www.quietpc.com

ZM-2HC2 Hard Drive Heatpipe Cooler

www.quietpc.com www.quietpc.com

Had them for years and years. Dunno if you can get them any more, and you need spare 5 1/4" bays, but they do a decent job.
 
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Snapshot said:
Really? Which drives run at over 7,200 rpm these days?
Click to expand...
The last couple of servers I had built were SSD which comes with a big price tag, that said I didn't realise the cut off point at least listed by Dell is around 4TB for 10k drives so OP will have to settle for slower drives unless he has very deep pockets.

I often worked in server rooms with 3 or 4 servers each with 6-8 bay hot swap arrays populated with a mix of 10k and 15k drives.

All the sub 4TB SAS drives I could see on Dells site were 10k, theres still a place for them not every server application needs vast ammounts of storage and not everyone can afford server grade SSD's.

Theres a huge price premium for large server grade SSD e.g. Dell has a 7.68TB SAS SSD list for £10,300 so thats £61,000 to populate a 6 bay server ouch.


A quick search for big SSD's and I came accross 122TB for $13,000 and a 30TB USB C drive for $5000 so they are out there but you will probably have to wait another decade plus before they are affordable enough for domestic use.
 
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