This work was submitted to our "unlimited" article competition and the author received an award - a branded T-shirt of the site and a motherboard provided by the Boston PC company.

Introduction

The last bastion of noise in the construction of a quiet computer, as you know, is its HDD. Component manufacturers have already learned how to make noiseless motherboards, video cards, power supplies, fans. If you have sufficient funds, you can even purchase a complete solution Zalman TNN500AF. However, not everyone can afford such a case, and not so much attention is paid to the hard drive in it. The same noise reduction hard drive Several materials on the site have already been devoted to the site:

What has changed lately? First, let's see what they offer us on the market. I note that the article will focus only on completely silent devices, coolers with forced air cooling such as Cooler Master CoolDrive , Spire FlowCooler or Titan TTC will not be considered due to their slightly different purpose. The question was not to cool the hard drive, but to make it less noisy, even at the cost of an increase in temperature. Installing a cooler is contrary to the task.

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Serial HDD coolers

Scythe SBX-1000

One of the popular devices for suppressing hard drive noise from the rapidly gaining popularity of the Japanese company Scythe. The only cooler available that is made entirely of rubber, namely Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (outer layer) and Styrene Butadiene Rubber (inner layer). The material is specially designed for high noise and vibration absorption. The workmanship is traditionally high for Scythe. Heat dissipation is carried out using an aluminum plate fixed on the top cover of the cooler. Curiously, the hard drive is installed upside down. The manufacturer does not specify what such an unusual installation of the hard drive will lead to, no restrictions are also reported, although all modern hard drives work without problems in this position. It is stated that it is possible to install any IDE or SATA hard drive with a spindle speed of up to 10,000 rpm. Cost around € 50

While working at the computer, many users have noticed noise. It can be created by both a cooler, a video card, and a hard drive. However, the noise from the hard drive is different from other sounds that come from the system unit or the bottom of the laptop. The noise of the hard drive is more like crackling. It appears when you copy large files or play a game. If your PC was previously stable and extraneous noise was not observed, and now the hard drive is cracking, it is worth copying all the important information from it and checking it.

Get rid of hard drive crash

If your hard drive is cracking, there are two ways to fix this problem:

• Reduced head positioning speed (since they crack);
• Reliable fixation of the hard drive inside the system unit.

Each hard drive has an option such as Automatic Acoustic Management. It is responsible for the speed of rotation of the magnetic heads of the hard drive. It is impossible to change its parameters and reduce the data reading speed with the usual settings. Requires a special program. You can find many of these on the Internet. QuietHDD software is popular. However, it is worth warning that by reducing the speed of rotation of the heads, the speed of reading information decreases. The disk starts to slow down. This is a negative factor. Here you have to choose: speed or working hard drive.

We remove the crackle of the hard drive using quietHDD in the following way. Download and run the utility as Administrator.

Open the "AAM Settings" tab. We move the sliders to the minimum position, reduce from 256 to 128 revolutions. Then click "Accept" and "OK".

In order not to run this utility every time before starting to use programs and applications, it is worth adding it to the system startup.

If you are the owner of a PC, not a laptop, the hard drive must be securely fixed in the system unit. You can do this in three ways:

1. Bolt fastening. Often, the hard drive is attached with just two bolts, although there are more connectors. In the "sled" the disk "feels" freely and because of this creates a crackle and noise. It is worth stretching the device and securely fasten the hard drive to all the bolts.

1. Use of pads. Soft rubberized pads dampen noise and vibration. You can buy them or cut them yourself and install them at the point of contact between the disk and the system unit. However, the material should not be too large so as not to interfere with the ventilation of the disc.

1. Mounting with twisted pair. Usually, 3-4 small pieces of wire are used for this purpose and fastened as if the disk were located in the sled. However, in this case, it will be difficult to move the body. There is a risk of damaging the device.

Using the above methods, you can fix the hard drive so that it does not make noise or crack.

The hard drive remains one of the noisiest components in a computer. Moreover, one should distinguish between noise due to the active operation of the hard drive during reading / writing and motor noise, which comes from the disk almost constantly. Naturally, one should not forget about the vibration noise, which is greatly amplified by the computer case. For example, disks rigidly fixed in the metal case of the system unit often transmit their low-frequency vibration (100-120 Hz) to it, and as a result, a noticeable unpleasant hum appears, which completely disappears with a non-rigid mount.

Silent mount

the main source of noise in passive mode is the spindle bearing assembly. Being rigidly fixed in the computer case, the hard drive, with its low-frequency oscillations of small amplitude, causes the elements of the case to oscillate. The large surface of the computer case becomes a kind of amplifier for the noise emitted by the hard drive. Note that 3-inch hard drive bays in modern cases are often made in the form of a non-rigidly fixed basket, which is a good oscillating system. In this case, it is better to completely remove the basket from the case, and install the drive in a 5.25-inch bay in a container or using mounting sleds. There are several mounting methods to reduce the noise of a hard drive.

To prevent resonances, you can use elastic washers for the bolts of the disk to the computer case, vibration isolators or an elastic suspension. An interesting idea was suggested on the Internet by enthusiasts from the Spode's Adobe website (http://www.spodesabode.com/) - a rather original and very cheap way to reduce the noise associated with disk vibration. All you need to implement it is two pencils and a few rubber rings with which you can secure a three-inch hard drive in a five-inch bay with braces (by the way, this will in a good way for quickly mounting a hard drive in a computer if all three-inch seats are occupied).

Perhaps this is one of the cheapest modifications, but it will force you to look inside your computer from time to time and change the rubber bands, as they become unusable over time. However, you can use wider and more reliable harnesses. However, do not forget that an insecurely fixed hard drive can slow down the performance of the system or even fail.

In addition, some hard drives get very hot during operation, so good thermal contact with the computer case is an indispensable condition for their reliable operation, and suspension or insulation from the case disrupts heat transfer. So although the most modern models have significantly reduced power consumption, the risk of overheating with difficult heat dissipation still remains.

For such hard drives, you can use devices such as Mobile Rack (http://www.mobile-rack.ru/), which is a plastic container into which a hard drive is inserted on a sled. The container will also perform the role of a vibration isolator - dampen some of the vibrations of the hard drive. Some cases have built-in fans for better heat dissipation.

A more radical method of reducing the noise of a hard drive is the use of special soundproof containers such as Silent Drive (http://www.quietps.com/) with a heat-removing circuit.

How to make a hard drive quieter using software

Many manufacturers provide for their products the ability to programmatically reduce the speed of head positioning. The owner of the hard drive can reduce the noise level with the help of special utilities that should be looked for on the website of a particular manufacturer. Naturally, the speed of access to data after reducing the noise may decrease somewhat, but the level of comfort when working with a personal computer will increase.

The fact is that many modern hard drives have the function of controlling the emitted noise (Automatic Acoustic Management, AAM, which in Russian means noise control), and therefore some hard drive manufacturers have developed utilities for managing various disk parameters, including AMM. Almost any modern hard drive that complies with the ATA/ATAPI-6 standard or higher supports this function. The only exceptions are thin, cheap Maxtor drives and many modern Seagate drives that have AAM support but cannot be adjusted.

How does the hard drive regulate the noise it makes? Some believe that noise reduction is achieved by reducing the disk rotation speed, but this is not true, since the spindle speed is a constant value and is maintained for a specific model with an accuracy of fractions of a percent. But the speed of movement of the drive of the block of magnetic heads (BMG) can be controlled. If you dismantled a modern hard drive, you would see that the HMG is driven by a coil located in the field of action of a strong permanent magnet. When a current is passed through the coil in one direction, the block begins to move in one direction, and when the sign of the current changes, it begins to move in the other direction. This whole design strongly resembles the design of a conventional acoustic speaker, which is why this coil is called acoustic. The greater the amplitude of the current pulse passed through the coil, and the steeper its front, the greater the acceleration imparted to the block of magnetic heads, and, accordingly, the stronger the noise emitted by the BMG design, because it acts as a diffuser in this "dynamics". The essence of the noise reduction method in this case is reduced to smoothing the fronts of the current pulse supplied to the coil, which, in addition to reducing noise, leads to a decrease in the acceleration of the movement of the head unit. And this means that the operation of searching for a specific location on the disk will be slower.

According to the ATA / ATAPI specification, adjustment can be carried out in 126 discrete levels (values ​​​​in hex 0x80-0xFE), but in practice only two levels of adjustment are often supported - AAM ON (noise reduction is enabled - hex values ​​\u200b\u200b0x80-0xA0) and AAM OFF (respectively, maximum performance - hex values ​​0xA1-0xFE). The principle of operation of utilities that control the noise level of hard drives is to change the contents of the special Acoustic Management register.

As a rule, this function does not provide for a smooth decrease in speed, but only switches modes from "fast" to "quiet", but expansion of its capabilities is planned in future implementations. Moreover, the noise level of the disk can be changed at any time without losing the integrity of the disk, that is, without destroying the information available on it.

On hard drives from different manufacturers, the factory setting may be different and vary from batch to batch. For example, some Samsung models are released either with AAM enabled or disabled (that is, in maximum performance mode).

In order to adjust the noise level on your hard drive, you need, as we have already mentioned, to use a special utility from the drive manufacturer. If you don’t find such a program on the manufacturer’s website, then you can use one of the many free utilities for disk management. For example, there is a special AAMTOOL program by Mikhail Mavritsin and a universal MHDD by Dmitry Postrigan. Programs can be taken from our CD. The possibilities of MHDD can be found on the website (http://mhddsoftware.com/index.ru.php). AAM is easy to adjust - run MHDD from a floppy disk and in command line programs to dial AAM. The hard drive will begin to crack its heads, and the program will offer you a choice of several options: M (minimum noise level), L (medium), P (maximum), and the D key turns off Automatic Acoustic Management, thereby putting the hard drive into maximum performance mode.

Switching the hard drive to low noise mode, although it leads to a decrease in performance by an average of 5-10% (in some search tasks, the decrease can be up to 30%), but the hard drive in this mode is almost inaudible even when copying a large number small files.

However, in consumer devices, the speed characteristics of the drive are less important than the noise it produces - with modern performance technologies hard drives more than enough and of particular importance for the user is already the acoustic background created by the drive in the system. Realizing this, many hard drive companies are investing heavily in research and development of quieter drives and in improving system designs to minimize their inherent noise.

However, do not forget that such simple universal methods as regular disk defragmentation, timely archiving, garbage removal and keeping your data in order also reduce the noise level of the hard drive when searching for information.

And one more thing: get uninterruptible power supplies and cases with high-quality power supplies for your computers - unstable voltage (not to mention the overvoltage of cheap power supplies) can also lead to drive failures and not only increase their noise, but also disable .

Modern drives are making less and less noise.

Drive manufacturers do not stand still, and when designing new models, they apply more and more new noise reduction technologies, including the use of shock-absorbing materials inside and outside the drive.

In principle, now for most hard drives, a noise level of about 30-35 dB is considered acceptable (noise increases when the hard drive heads are actively moving).

The rotation speed of a disk pack in a modern hard drive is 5400, 7200, 10,000 or 15,000 rpm (rpm). And the higher the speed of disk rotation, the greater the speed of access to information recorded on the hard drive. True, the most common hard drives at present have a speed of 5400-7200 rpm, since this is cheaper, simpler and more reliable. It affects the fact that there is air at atmospheric pressure inside the hard drive case, therefore, if the disk rotation speed is too high, the rotating parts heat up significantly, and this leads to problems in the reliability of structural elements. In addition, high-speed hard drives create a significant level of noise during operation, which does not contribute to comfortable working with a computer. For example, the noise level when reading data in random order is so high that the operation of a hard drive sometimes resembles the roar of a tractor. For slower hard drives, the noise level can be significantly lower, but now that hard drives are equipped with Appliances(digital audio and video recorders, satellite receivers, Internet set-top boxes, etc.), the requirements for their noise level are noticeably tougher.

Indeed, in the field of consumer electronics, there are practically no devices containing fans, and hard drives become the only source of noise in them. Moreover, the requirements for the silence of the operation of household devices are much more stringent than for desktop computers, and a low noise level is often associated with a high quality product.

That's why hard drive manufacturers are now aiming to achieve 15-20 dB noise levels (quiet room background level at night) in passive mode and 2-3 dB higher in read/write mode. Of course, such a level would satisfy even the most demanding user, but today there are practically no such drives, and noise reduction from existing drives has to be achieved by additional means.

The easiest solution to get rid of motor noise is to get a hard drive with a speed of 5400 rpm. Such a disk drive, when idling, has a noise level of 28-30 dB and will not be heard during the day (at this time, the background noise of a quiet room is at the level of 30 dB), especially if it is enclosed in a well-insulated system case that also muffles sounds . However, in the data search mode, the noise increases by 4-6 dB or more, which cannot remain invisible to the user. And for consumer electronics (for example, for the same digital video recorders), such a noise level is generally unacceptable.

Therefore, the noise level of hard drives is steadily decreasing. Spindle now good disk It is almost silent, and makes a characteristic sound only when starting or stopping. In addition, a characteristic crackle is emitted by the head positioning mechanism, which is especially noticeable when copying many small files scattered on the disk (to reduce noise when positioning heads, regular disk defragmentation can be recommended). However, for some models, the head positioning time is deliberately increased by the developers in order to reduce the noise level when reading/writing small or highly fragmented files.

Thus, the use of disks of the latest generations provides a more radical reduction in noise than all the methods described above, including when the positioning mechanism is intensively working.

Modern drives use soundproofing gaskets, SeaShield protective covers, fluid dynamic bearings (Fluid Dynamics Bearing, FDB), as well as couplers between the body and the engine, special materials and designs are selected that allow you to achieve 20 dB at idle and up to 28 dB when silently searching for data.

Thus, acoustics (that is, the noise that the drive produces during operation) becomes one of the most important parameters of modern hard drives.

I think that users, especially those who are not the first day at the computer, pay attention to suspicious noises from the computer (laptop). The noise of the hard drive is usually different from other noises (like crackling) and occurs when it is heavily loaded - for example, you copy big file or download information from a torrent. This noise is annoying to many, and in this article I would like to tell you how you can reduce the level of such crackling.

By the way, right at the beginning I would like to say this. Not all models of hard drives are noisy.

If your device has not previously made noise, and now it has begun, I recommend it to you. In addition, when noise appears that has never happened before - first of all, do not forget to copy all important information to other media, this can be a bad sign.

If you always had such a noise in the form of a cod- it means that this is the normal operation of your hard disk, because it is still a mechanical device and magnetic disks are constantly rotating in it. There are two methods of dealing with such noise: fixing or mounting the hard drive in the device case so that there is no vibration and resonance; the second method is to reduce the speed of positioning the reading heads (they just crackle).

1. How can I fix the hard drive in the system unit?

By the way, if you have a laptop, you can immediately go to the second part of the article. The fact is that in a laptop, as a rule, nothing can be invented, tk. devices inside the case are located very compactly and you can no longer put any gaskets.

If you have a normal system unit, there are three main options that are used in such cases.

1) Firmly fix the hard drive in the system unit case. Sometimes, the hard drive is not even bolted to the mount, it is simply located on the "sled", because of this, noise is made during operation. Check if it is well fixed, stretch the bolts, often, if it is attached, then not on all the bolts.

2) You can use special soft pads that dampen vibration and thus suppress noise. By the way, such gaskets can be made by yourself, from some piece of rubber. The only thing is, don't make them too big - they shouldn't interfere with the ventilation around the hard drive case. It is enough that these gaskets will be at the points of contact between the hard drive and the case of the system unit.

3) You can hang the hard drive inside the case, for example, on network cable(twisted pair). Usually, small 4 pieces of wire are used and fastened with them so that the hard drive is located in the same way as if it were mounted on a sled. The only thing, with such a mount, you need to be very careful: move the system unit carefully and without sudden movements - otherwise you risk hitting the hard drive, and the blows end badly for it (especially when the device is turned on).

2. Reduction of crackling and noise due to the speed of positioning the block with heads (Automatic Acoustic Management)

There is one option in the hard drive, which by default does not appear anywhere - you can change it only with the help of special utilities. We are talking about Automatic Acoustic Management (or AAM for short).

If you do not go into complex technical details, then the point is to reduce the speed of movement of the heads, thereby reducing crackling and noise. But at the same time, the speed of the hard drive also decreases. But, in this case - you will extend the life of the hard drive by an order of magnitude! Therefore, you have to choose - either noise and high speed, or noise reduction and longer operation of your disk.

By the way, I want to say that by reducing the noise on my Acer laptop- I could not evaluate the speed of work "by eye" - it works the same as before!

So. There are special utilities for regulating and configuring AAM (I talked about one of them in). We are talking about a simple and convenient utility - quietHDD ().

You need to run it as an administrator. Next, go to the AAM Settings section and move the sliders from 256 to 128. After that, click Apply for the settings to take effect. Actually, after that, you should immediately notice a reduction in cod.

By the way, in order not to run this utility again every time you turn on the computer, add it to startup. For OS Windows 2000, XP, 7, Vista - you can simply copy the utility shortcut to the "start" menu in the "startup" folder.

That's all. All the successful work of the hard drive, and, most importantly, quiet. 😛

It could be a creak from your interior door.

Hard disks are almost silent, but some of them make a muffled click sound when the read head is accessed or the computer is turned off - this is normal. If the sound appears only occasionally or noises that have not been heard of before - a click, grinding, vibration or squeal - then the hard drive is probably becoming faulty. There are several types of audio glitches.

The following steps will help you determine if your hard drive is really making noise, and if so, what to do next before your precious files are gone forever.

What to do if the hard drive is making a lot of noise?

HDD internal state

It will take time: This troubleshooting takes anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours, depending on the cause of the strange sound.

You need to make sure that the hard drive is the sound source and not another hardware component.

• If you unplug the drive's power cable, and the receive wire data hard disk. Do you still hear the noise at startup? The problem is not in the hard drive!
• Try another option to correctly identify the source. If the noise stops when the power cable is connected, but returns when connected or through other interfaces to the hard drive, the data cable may need to be replaced.

If, in fact, the hard drive is in a bad state, run a free hard drive diagnostic program that is available on the Internet. Professional diagnostic programs are also available for purchase from third parties.

• When running a diagnostic program, it is better to close other programs and disable drives or devices that you are not testing so that the results are not distorted.
• Diagnostic applications will only mark hard drive sectors that fail as "bad" and prevent the computer from using the bad areas in the future. In reality, the sectors will not be cured if there is a physical malfunction.

In case the corrections made by the diagnostic programs will not temporarily eliminate the noise, perform a full backup computer and replace the hard drive.

If diagnostic applications help fix clicks (noises), grinding or squealing sounds, remember that this is a temporary solution. Probably during operation, the noise will continue until serviceability is finally lost.

The permanent solution when the noise starts is to make a full system backup and replace the hard drive as soon as possible.

In rare cases, noise appears when you access the right areas on the hard drive, these are probably the damaged sectors that are at risk. This problem can be corrected by diagnostic applications.

Still bad hard drive?

External drives, like internal ones, also make a sound. These noises are heard when the drive is first connected to the computer and is often caused by a power or cable connection failure.

There is no panacea for recovering a failed hard drive, it is important to protect files by performing regular backups. With an updated backup, recovering from a hard drive failure is as easy as installing a new one and restoring your files.

There are no moving parts inside a solid state drive () like a traditional hard drive, and it is impossible to hear mechanical sounds during operation.

Backup of a bad drive

The best way to create a backup is an online service Reserve copy on the Internet, because files are stored in the "cloud" and are less prone to loss or damage. Fast way- use a free backup program - some of these programs can even clone files from a failed hard drive and place them on a new working hard drive.

Try fixing the noise from the external hard drive by plugging the power adapter directly into a wall outlet using or USB ports 2.0+. You can connect a hard drive to the USB port on the back of your computer. Make sure the USB port is working properly.

Defragmenting a Noisy Hard Drive

Defragmentation of HDD tracks

A fragmented hard drive provides a good speed for moving files than one that is not fragmented. Available free programs defragmentation to prolong its life, but this will probably not solve the problem on most noisy hard drives.

If the hard drive makes a sound, it means that it is turned on. However, you may not be able to boot into the operating system to use the files normally. This is not a common occurrence, it is possible that the sound is due to a faulty device.

Other noises that are generated by the computer

The hard drive is not the only computer component that makes strange noises. Power supply, fan, and other devices that may make noise during operation. It is important to know where the noise is coming from in order to understand what needs to be fixed.

For example, if the computer is running in overdrive for a particular task. Let's say when you start a video game you can hear the fan spinning faster to keep the hardware cool. There may be something stuck in the fan blades causing the strange noise.

Hear and analyze noise

When you open a program or computer window, it is possible to hear the noise getting louder and louder - it's easy to make a mistake here. This probably means that the disk is spinning in the drive, which is spinning faster than before, so that the computer accepts data, this is normal.

Popping or static speaker sounds can also be mistaken for noise (cable not securely attached to computer connector), as can some BIOS beeps.