The perfect HDD bay (vibration-reduction)

[MrCalvin]

I'm thinking of creating some customized HDD brackets for my 2U server cabinet (also of the custom type).
At first I thought of placing the HDDs in some kind of rubber suspensions to eliminate any vibrations from other HDDs, coolers in the cabinet and other external vibrations (vibrations hitting the rack).
These will not be hot-plug...I don't need that.

But then I started to think about the vibrations the drive create itself!

If the drive is attached to some rubber suspensions the drive's own vibration would actually be increased and that might be even worse than the vibration from a normal installation, where all the drives are installed directly to the cabinet with some kind of iron brackets. So now I'm not so sure if it's a good idea afterall.
I mean if you attach a disk to something solid and relatively heave (the cabinet) it would decrease the vibrations. The disadvantage is that all the drives will be hit by the vibrations that actually "survive".

I think the ultimate HDD attachment would be to install each disk on its own relative solid and heavy iron plate , perhaps even with some lead, that would be fasten and installed on rubber suspensions, but now the projects gets a little out of hand.

What is your thoughts?

 

[K D]

How many drives are you planning to add? And what is the objective? Noise reduction? Without over engineering I've seen lian li and fractal design cases just add a rubber washer where you screw the drive to the cage or tray and that is effective enough.

 

[MrCalvin]

Vibration-reduction to prolong the life of drives. Vibration is a killer
I my view 2 or 10 drives doesn't make any difference on the matter.
And the subject is not how the solution could be made, but if it is a good idea, hence the drive's own vibrations is expected to be increased if it's not attached to a mass that can reduce it.

 

[Tom5051]

Harmonic resonance is the issue when you have 4+ drives that do not have enterprise grade vibration dampening.
You won't have much luck making it quieter because each drive will act like a sound board for it's own noise.
I remember a guy that used to get really sea sick but loved boats so he had this expensive gimbal setup on one of the cabins. Turns out it made the rocking worse. Moral of the story is, the obvious might not always be beneficial.
Buy Enterprise drives if you want a big array. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[K D]

Agree with @Tom5051 .Nas drives are designed to handle the vibration.

 

[cesmith9999]

XioTech Data Packs were designed (in the past - not certain now) to reduce vibration by having every other drive flipped upside down.

Chris