Suspended drives - static electricity concerns?

[ajf3]

Hey all,

I'm planning on rigging something like this up, but I just got to thinking about static electricity...

Don't know much about it, but is there a danger of a static charge building up from the vibration of the drive causing the fabric/elastic/rubber to rub against itself? Would it be safer to use thick rubber bands, or some other material?

Thanks!

 

[ajf3]

Ah - I knew I forgot something... the other question was this - don't the screws mounted to the case metal provide for grounding? Should I run a grounding wire from each drive to the case too?

 

[screw3d]

Interesting question.

I think the folks in SPCR mentions that there isn't a need for seperate grounding because the ground connection from the PSU would do the job fine..

 

[Cosmo3]

I have hard drives in 2 machines mounted sideways with bungie cords and they work great. I went from hearing the hard drive seek to no hard drive noise at all. One of the best things I ever did as far as quieting things down in my case.

 

[ajf3]

When you mounted them sideways was it because it was easier, or is that a better way to do it for some reason?

Also, I'm guessing you've had it like that for awhile - no static charge issues?

 

[Cosmo3]

No static at all, I did them sideways because it was easier to do it as I used the hard drive cage that came with my case, Antec 3700. They are vertical instead of horazontal but it isn't supposed to make a difference. I could hear the heads when booting up before and under heavy disk access and now I can not hear the drive at all.

 

[0roo0roo]

string a piece of wire from case to drive if ur scared.

 

[Zepper]

Best practice is to have a direct link from the drive chassis/frame to true earth ground for static bleed-off. Some places like BG Micro still sell grounding wires like they used to use in cases that used plastic rails to mount drives (original IBM AT and similar). Have a quick disconnect connector on one end and an eyelet connector on the other. Of course you could always make them yourself with whatever connectors are needed and whatever color insulation you like.
.bh.

 

[everman]

If the drive is plugged in, it's grounded. So no worries about static electricity building up.