Quiet Drive 2.5 Internal HDD Silencer Discontinued | |
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Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5 Internal HDD Silencer
Building on from the success of the Silent Box, Scythe have now released the Quiet Drive. This new hard drive enclosure offers better noise reduction properties than its predecessor at a cheaper price!
Quiet Drive 2.5 Internal HDD Silencer
The reason the performance of the Quiet Drive has increased compared to the Silent Box is because the Quiet Drive uses a “Quadruple Core Structure”, QCS. The hard drive is first encased by aluminium plates. On the top an bottom of those plates two thick thermal pads are used to help transfer the heat away from the hard drive and onto the top and bottom of outer casing which is also made from aluminium. Scythe call this “Double Heat Diffusion Method”.
Around the inside edges of the outer casing is soft foam which reduces the vibrational noise generated by the hard drive. It also helps to quieten the high pitched whine that emits due to the spinning platters inside the hard disk.
On the outer of the casing there are four metal rectangles. These rubber mounted clips allow the Quiet Drive to be attached into a spare 5¼” drive bay, they also aid anti-vibration.
Quiet Drive 2.5” Internal HDD Silencer
The 2.5” version of the Quiet Drive is basically a smaller version of the 3.5” that has been designed specifically for 2.5” laptop hard drives. Once installed in the Quiet Drive the hard drive is then placed into a spare internal 3.5” drive bay.
The reason Scythe have done this is to allow the use of laptop hard drives in desktop PCs. This is because laptop hard drive are generally quieter than standard 3.5” hard drive due to the platters rotate slower (5400 RPM), allowing the user to benefit from the noise reduction features.
With the ability to virtually make any 2.5” hard drive near-silent and given the fact the cooling properties of the enclosure means it will cool any hard drive available, the Quiet Drive is an excellent hard drive silencing solution that needs serious consideration.
PLEASE NOTE - The 3.5” version of the Quiet Drive is now end of life and therefore it is no longer available.
Review
Silent PC Review
The Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5 is a solid product. It almost completely silenced the Momentus 7200.4 500GB notebook drive, and reduced the noise output of the louder Travelstar 7K100 by a very audible margin. There was very little increase in HDD temperature in the SQD2.5. For smaller systems, perhaps a HTPC, the SQD2.5 is a good way to get silent storage without the cost and storage limitations of an SSD. The 500GB Momentus 7200.4 sells for a little over $100; add $30~40 for the SQD2.5 and you have a pretty fast, silent 500GB drive. In comparison, the same expenditure will get you about 30GB in a good SSD today. The SQD2.5 deserves an Editor’s Choice award for silencing and value. (Product reviewed: Quiet Drive 2.5)
| Specifications | Quiet Drive 2.5 |
|---|---|
| Model Name | Quiet Drive 2.5” |
| Model # | SQD2.5-1000 |
| Manufacturer | Scythe Co., Ltd. Japan |
| Dimensions | 102 x 146 x 25mm (WxDxH) |
| Hard Disk Type | 2.5” IDE Parallel & Serial ATA |
| Case Bay | Standard 3.5” Bay |
| Weight | 465g |
| Core Structure | Double Noise Reduction, Heat Diffusion & Anti-Vibration |
| Cooling | Double Heat Diffusion Method + Thermal Conductive Sheet |
| Mounting | Float Mounting Method |
| Warranty | 24 months |
| EAN barcode | 4571225040134 |
| Specifications | Quiet Drive 2.5 |
|---|---|
| Model Name | Quiet Drive 2.5” |
| Model # | SQD2.5-1000 |
| Manufacturer | Scythe Co., Ltd. Japan |
| Dimensions | 102 x 146 x 25mm (WxDxH) |
| Hard Disk Type | 2.5” IDE Parallel & Serial ATA |
| Case Bay | Standard 3.5” Bay |
| Weight | 465g |
| Core Structure | Double Noise Reduction, Heat Diffusion & Anti-Vibration |
| Cooling | Double Heat Diffusion Method + Thermal Conductive Sheet |
| Mounting | Float Mounting Method |
| Warranty | 24 months |
| EAN barcode | 4571225040134 |
Customer Reviews
What it says on the tin...
All in all this is a nice bit of kit. Once its bolted together if feels nice and solid, and looks almost good enough to be an external drive, but the protruding connection cables prohibit that. Screws into the standard 3.5 bays happily, and even screwed directly to a metal drive tray I now have no drive vibration or discernible noise whatsoever from my WD 120GB. In fact, once my HTPC is in-situ the only way I know the HDD is working is by the activity LED - just the way it should be :-). The unit gets nice and warm after a bit of use, which shows heat is being conducted away from the drive nicely as well. I will definitely give the larger version a try now with a WD 1TB drive…
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