Data Hoarder

168 readers

1 users here now

We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Fractal Define 7 XL or R5 case for lower HDD noise? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've watched several YT videos reviewing both cases but nothing that explicitly calls out the noise levels with several HDDs running.

I'm about to rebuild my unraid server and looking to buy the 7XL or R5, I already have 6 HDDs and will likely add some more in over time. At the moment, the server will need to be in my home office sitting 3 - 4ft away from me and I'm trying to understand how much noise isolation I can expect. Most of my drives are WD Blue 8TB but I have one Exos X16 14TB for parity. I've seen reviewes of the R5 that show some kind of dampening on the panels but I didn't see that with the 7 XL.

Anyone with some experience with these cases able to comment?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This looks interesting, I have so many questions!

I assume it takes up two slots that way instead of one right?

Did you screw through the rubber stoppers? Or are you just using pressure from the knots to keep the HDD in place? I see screws resting on the stoppers but it doesn't look like they go through it.

How well has it been holding up? Looks like you've had it for over a year now. And would something like this work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Here's what it looks like above a normally-mounted HDD

It takes up about 2" of vertical space, compared to 1 1/3" (roughly) that is standard. I'd assume you would not be able to fill the case to full capacity using this method, but I'm not aware of the normal gap. Maybe? That said, you could reduce the bumper height way down. I just used big huge ones because I could.

The bumpers are NOT mounted to the HDD, just squeezed against it: slip knots pulled very tightly, compressing the screws against the rubber. So you could use shorter bumpers than these, or a small bit of any kind of vibration insulator, and you could probably get a similar reduction in bumping sounds.

It's somewhat secure, but the case rarely moves. I carry the case out to the garage for its bi-annual air compressor dusting with no trouble, but I don't tilt it much. This could be upgraded with zipe ties, or some sort of compressable metal clamp (If I did this I would rubber dip or Electric tape or something else to insulate the interior of the metal, just to be safe)

And would something like this work?

I think so. Those 7, 6, and 5 stoppers would be similar size to what I used here. And with those maybe you could do a T cut through it to make it a bit less "solid" and a bit more wobbly, if you wanted to, to reduce vibration.