Scythe Quiet Drive

David Field hunts for silence with a sharp farming implement.

There's nothing quite like the constant buzz of a spinning hard disk to drive you totally insane - the sort of insane that makes you shove oranges down your pants and rub marmalade on your face. Why? Because you've gone insane, that's why.

If you're considering putting your PC in another room and running cables through the dividing wall to avoid the big red novelty 'Crazy' stamp on the hand, don’t. The Scythe Quiet Drive, a soundproof box that houses a hard drive amid a sea of high density foam, could be the solution you've been looking for.

We’re a little apprehensive about the concept of an insulating box. Until we find some form of sound dampening that doesn’t have any thermal insulation properties, the theory behind the Quiet Drive is really the only defence against noise that we have.

Two metal covers act as heatsinks and protect the logic board of the drive from damage. A pair of foam strips pad out the gaps between the drive and case, to soften vibrations that pass through the foam. Once you’ve fed the power and SATA cables through, the two halves of the box screw together with the drive in the middle. Then it's a simple matter of mounting the Quiet Drive in a 5.25" bay.

There’s even a SATA and power cable extender, which connects to the drive and pokes 10 centimetres out of the box, making the drive accessible without needing to pull the box apart when you move it.

In a Media Center box, we’d be prepared to use it with a slow, relatively cool drive set to spin down when not in use. We’ve got a feeling that if you ran a Raptor in it for an hour you’d be able to could cook an egg on top of the drive.

It’s useful - even if it goes against our 'faster, better, cooler' mentality - and we can see it being used in a specific setup by people who are serious about their HTPC’s intrusiveness. At least you won’t have to walk into another room whenever you want to change a CD.