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Evaluation of the "Silent Drive" HDD dampening system

Won't spend much time on this one. As part of the pilot project, different readily available standard components where tested to see how they performed. The SilentDrive kit from Silent Systems where a messy, fumbling and not a quite so impressive experience. It was hard to fit the drive into the box, and difficult to remove it later on. I never managed to fit the "lid" either, it kept popping off. Gave up on it and just fitted the foamy stuff.

You get what you pay for, and the price tag reflects the quality of the product.

Manufacturer link : molex / silent systems something.com

Weak sides are poor vibrational daming, positive is that it has the potential to muffle off the direct sounds of the drive, but these are not the major noise generating factor on the whole. No assembly instructions, and this was much needed. As I understands it this box is recomended for drives up to 5400 RPM's ( max 5 Watts) due to heat buildup limitations. There where no thermal verifcations tabs included in the kit I got, and the drive that I used to perform the test didn't have any internal sensor to give me an readout of the actual temperature. Shouldn't be a problem though.

I have some serious doubts as to wheter this kit even works on the "conseptual level", to me it looks more like a marketing "thang", or a drawingboard construction. The aluminium plates that can bee seen on the third image, is probably mean to be some kind of "heat sink" for the drive. The "real" benefits of this is questionable, and probably has a higher psychological value :) The main drawback is that the vibrations that the drive generate propages on these heatsinks and over to the cabinet, leaving you more or less back at square one.

The NoVibes kit is a much more effective solution, and easier to install in my opinion. With that kit you can also ignore heat-buildup limitations and go for a higher performance drive; say 7200 RMP or higher.