Keeping hard discs quiet...

A

Alex H

New member
Is there an accepted/workable way to keep hard dics quiet? I've just got a hard disc recorder that isn't exactly noisy - and with directional mics I don't suspect i would be heard - but I'm just concerned that on a live gig, people don't get distracted by it...Maybe they wouldn't hear it? I dunno - I unboxed and played around with the thing late at night and it was *absolutely* silent in the room, so maybe this is a bit unlike a live situation, even with everyone quiet!

Anyhow, any help would be really appreciated!

Alex
 
For drives inside a pc case, the methods I'm familiar with are:

a) a silent enclosure like this:
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=1&CATID=1

b) or suspending the drive like this:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article109-page1.html

If your drive is in a stand-alone recorder, I'm not sure you have many options. What about using something like the auralex gramma (or some dense foam) to decouple the recorder from whatever surface it's sitting on (which will reduce vibration noise)?
http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_gramma/sound_isolation_gramma.asp
 
My advice would be to get a better hard drive. The cheap drives are loud. Get yourself a fluid bearing drive---not WD; their fluid bearing drives are still pretty loud; don't ask me how that's possible---at 5400 RPM. That's plenty for reasonable track counts. Such a drive should be nearly silent. Even better, use a 5400 RPM Travelstar and adapt the bus connector.

That said, I'm not sure how well any of those solutions would work in a stand-alone recorder. I've never used such a beast.
 
Seagate Barracudas are dead quiet :) On the minus side, I had one of them die on me recently, but I suppose that is life :( It got even quieter though :o
 
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