Silencing Velociraptor HDD

[kristoffer]

Anyone have a clue how I could "silence" my Velociraptors (I have a 4 HD setup - SSD for OS, 2x Velociraptors in Raid0 for Audio and a 7200rpm for samples)
 
I've located my most noisy part of the computer to the Velociraptors, anyone have a clue if it is possible to reduce the noise of these in a way?
 
It is in a fairly good sound dampened case (see signature) and they have a rubber dampening of some kind also (case standard). It is not resonance noise, I'd say.
 
 
Would this item might be worth it?
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/harddrivesolutions/smartdrive-neo

Or should I replace my velociraptors?

[Aussie Allan]

    Welcome kristoffer

     To give a balanced, informed reply...........I need to know the size of the Raptors ....GB.?

  Aussie Allan

[kristoffer]

  ah, they are 150GB each.
So the raid array is 300GB.

I really dont need that much though - atleast not yet.

I'd rather exchange them for a 120GB SSD if that makes more sense.
But AFAIK SSDs for Audio is not reccomended.

[Aussie Allan]

   kristoffer

  At £80 a pop.........spending £160 + ship to have 2 ageing Rators running quieter just doesn't make good sense to me!

  When you consider you can buy say 2 x 120 GB OCZ Agility 3s for about £60-£70 more and get....

  Silent running with less Amp draw

  Maybe up to 1000Mb/s read and write speeds in Raid0

  And claw back some real-estate inside your case

                         or

 Buy 1 x 240Gb unit of the above......which will still outperform the Raptors ......then add the second at a later date for 480Gb of lightening quick SSD under Raid0

  .......Your Money......Your call 

  Aussie Allan

[kristoffer]

yes, but is SSD for audio a good thing? 

I've seen several treads which claims that this is not reccomended.

(dont remember if that was because of the file size or what)

[absic]

Hi kristoffer,

Not sure what kind of audio files you are using but I do a lot of multi-track recording using Cubase. The OS is installed onto a an SSD and I use another couple of SSD's as my main recording disks. These have presented no problems for me and the only real difference is the speed at which everything is accessed and utilised.

[Aussie Allan]

   The INTERNET is only as good as the person that posts on it......data is data......zero's and one's.......whether it comes from an memory stick, a SSD or a spinning glass platter......the computer does not differentiate .

  If your lucky enough to look at any modern DJ console......all the music is on SD cards.......if this was the case, every DJ worth his salt would still be using Bakelite or Vinyl  

  Aussie Allan

[kristoffer]

Absic and Allan: I'm using Sonar as my DAW, so Cubase would be just the same.

[absic]

Hi again kristoffer,

I don't see there being any problems with Sonar and working with your recorded audio files on SSD's. As AA has said this is one way of keeping the noise of the computer down and you know, as well as I do, how important that is in a recording environment.

[kristoffer]

   kristoffer

  At £80 a pop.........spending £160 + ship to have 2 ageing Rators running quieter just doesn't make good sense to me!

  When you consider you can buy say 2 x 120 GB OCZ Agility 3s for about £60-£70 more and get....

  Silent running with less Amp draw

  Maybe up to 1000Mb/s read and write speeds in Raid0

  And claw back some real-estate inside your case

                         or

 Buy 1 x 240Gb unit of the above......which will still outperform the Raptors ......then add the second at a later date for 480Gb of lightening quick SSD under Raid0

  .......Your Money......Your call 

  Aussie Allan

Just a comment to this one:

Isn't SATA 6GB/s a must to get those speeds?
I've looked for a Agility 3 now, but I think to get about 550MB/s you have to use the 6GB/s ports.
And those are on my UD3R 2.0 the Marvell 9128 chip 

Isnt that the one we are trying to avoid? 

[Aussie Allan]

  There's always alternatives..... most people forget that Sata2 is good for 500Mb/s per channel on the ICH10R theoretical .... you wont get 550 , but you'll be close.

  Or you can go the Raid card route ....even here it's a double edged sword......I have a raid card with TWO 9128 chips embedded in it but it performs well, Go figure! .... I think in hind sight it's what the 9128 chip is configured with (hardware wise) that governs weather it performs or not!

  Aussie Allan   

[kristoffer]

Ah. 500mb/s would be nice enough  (to start with, ofcourse.... I suppose after two weeks it is not )

It was one of the auctions I saw, where it stated about 250mb/s with SATA II, and 525mb/s with SATA III.
Cant find this somewhere else, so probably not correct

[Dark Mantis]

The details absic and Allan have given you regarding the drives are quite correct and don't believe all that you read on some of these other sites.  Personally I think that a couple of the OCZ drives in a RAID0 would be your best bet especially now that they have managed to get TRIM working on them in a RAID configuration now it saves having to break the RAID every so often to do a secure erase and then reconfigure it again.

[Aussie Allan]

  250 does sound a little low.....Maybe on a rather poor controller this might be true......the Marvel 9128 controller although SataIII gave these types of numbers but this was just one controller out of many.

  The Intel ICH10R controller is a very mature Controller with over a decade of development to back them up.

  Aussie Allan

[kristoffer]

So I have a plan then

Get a Agility 3 and use my ICH10R for now, and when I get the second drive I'll upgrade my raid controller 

(I suppose a Raid0 with SATA II also is limited to 500mb/s?)