Arctic Cooling Silentium T2 Review - HDD Muffler
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One of the most interesting features of the Silentium T2 is the HDD muffler. The muffler is basically an 3.5 inch aluminum frame which is also used to cool the hard drive. It is suspended by four rubber rings in a custom bracket attached to the PSU. This prevents vibrations from creating an audible noise.
The bottom of the muffler is similar to the top, and uses a rubber pad to reduce vibration.
The four clips are to be lifted to remove the rubber pad and cover to install the HDD. This also holds the rubber rings in place.
I was skeptical when I heard about the HDD muffler; I doubted that a block of aluminum could silence one of my drives. To test the muffler I decided to use the loudest, most annoying hard drive I have ever heard: an old Seagate ST34310A 4.3GB drive. I’ve had this drive sitting in my closet for years. This hard drive can be heard clearly above an 80mm Vantec Tornado and Western Digital’s Raptor series hard drives.
When I removed the HDD cover to install the hard drive, I broke off one of the clips that keep the cover in place. Luckily the cover remains in place with three clips instead of four.
Installing the HDD is simple: just remove the cover and the rubber pad, slide the hard drive in with the connectors facing out the hole, and re-attach the cover. Make certain that all of the rubber rings are still in place to prevent any vibration from transferring to the chassis. Finally, just plug in the appropriate cables.
Powering up the system using a jumping wire, I was amazed with the HDD silencer immediately. It decreased the noise of my loud hard drive down to the whisper of a regular chassis fan. Since my drive is considerably louder than one of the highest performing hard drives on the market, it's safe to say the muffler should decrease the noise of most of the performance hard drives to near silence.
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