HDD vibration solution

**darkseid** · 03-23-2006, 06:08 PM

I`ve spent the last 2 hrs searching the forums. A while ago there was a post with a blue 3.5" external HDD enclosure with silicon damping built in. Anyone help me out finding it again. The reasonI am asking is I have designed a Carputer with surveilance built in (upto 16 channels of realtime h264 video encoding) designed for a toushscreen interface and would like to have a 3.5" storage soltuion as opposed to a 2.5" storage solution.

**greenman100** · 03-23-2006, 06:13 PM

oh man

NO ONE

I repeat

NO ONE

has ever had a HDD fail from vibration in a car

people have gotten into major car accidents with teh carputer on and the HDD is fine

**darkseid** · 03-23-2006, 06:23 PM

Yeah but my application is really for the transport industry (buses and coaches) and I have seen lots of drives fail in that environment (my last job was with one of the UK`s largest installers of in vehicle CCTV)

**TruckinMP3** · 03-23-2006, 06:35 PM

Ahhhh BS.

As a user of an in Car 3.5 HD for 9 years and several car crashes with the HD in use.

**phatmonky** · 03-24-2006, 12:09 AM

Don't listen to these guys

You're putting a commercial product out. You need to at the minimum put on a good show (no matter one's opinion on whether a certain environment variable affects longevity)

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl...ch&sa=N&tab=wf
Hope that helps some. I never saw the post you are looking for.

**piabu** · 03-24-2006, 12:19 AM

The short version:
Modern HDDs (especially 2.5") are engineering to withstand tolerances beyond the human body. The HDD would survive conditions that would kill you.

The long version:
<you have to ask somebody else..>

My opinion:
Is the cost of damping in every install lower than the cost of replacing failed drives (assuming you can estimate the failure rate)? Alternatively would it be cheaper to built redundancy (RAID?) into the system?

Let the flames begin..

**quantum** · 03-24-2006, 01:01 AM

Originally Posted by TruckinMP3

Ahhhh BS.

As a user of an in Car 3.5 HD for 9 years and several car crashes with the HD in use.

Hmmm, car PC = several car crashes... I'd better call my insurance company and raise my policy limits before I start my install!

**PCModifiers** · 03-24-2006, 01:04 AM

I hope all these car crashes you guys are having aren't due to having a computer in your car

**Arathranar** · 03-24-2006, 01:19 AM

Given that the 2.5" drives are supposed to be more shock resistant, they sure fail often enough. I have one laptop that is on it's 3rd drive. My car PC is still going strong with it's 3.5" drive over the same time period.

I mounted it to the top of the case using rubber grommits in the mounting holes to give it some vibration isolation. Mostly I did it for the noise reduction though.