surround system + hard drive being too close = death

I bought a sound system of ~1000 watts for my HTPC and I was wondering:

how close should my computer and/or hard drives be from it in order to prevent sound and/or magnetic damage?

Thanks

Also please provide me some proof or your background of your awesome knowledge :)

update: it's my HTPC (duh :p) and my external hard drive lives in the same room as the system

Thomas

Posted 2013-05-09T02:10:03.570

Reputation: 3

I suspect your neighbours would complain before your HDD gets damaged. Are you worried about damage from sound, or the actual vibration of the speakers? I wouldn't worry about magnetic damage, computers are fairly well shielded – Journeyman Geek – 2013-05-09T02:23:02.623

Just a note, vibration on HDD is also can be bad. And vibration can be caused by your speaker vibration, or simple noise (loud noise). This is a video of someone demonstrating that screaming at your HDD (in a data center) actually cause data transfer spike -> www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

This may not apply too much to you, but something for you to consider as loud noise / vibration can cause the HDD to halt temporarily when it detected vibration/misalignment when accessing data. – Darius – 2013-05-09T03:11:54.040

Answers

The only component that you really have much to worry about is a hard drive. If you have an SSD the point is moot.

Otherwise, a foot would be more than enough space (This was about average for poorly shielded speakers and PCs / CRT monitors). Although, with decent speakers I have seen more than a few speakers sitting on the PC and there has been no detrimental effects.

That said, the PC and the speakers should be shielded. At 1000 watts, it probably is not a cheap system that did not shield properly.

The most probable, least shielded item would be the sub-woofer, so keep that as far away as possible.

Austin T French

Posted 2013-05-09T02:10:03.570

Reputation: 9 766

it's denon if that helps... what about my external hard drive does that get shielding? – Thomas – 2013-05-09T02:50:57.460

You should have no issues with them right next to each other. All your devices are well shielded. In addition to that, home based electrical devices do not typically generate a large or powerful magnetic field. As for proof, well... There are plenty of HTPC, DVRs, etc that are more than 1000 watts that have hard drives inside them.

As for sound, I wouldnt worry. I have never heard a hard drive die by sound vibrations.

I have a 1500 watt amp sitting on top of my HTPC for several years now with no issues.

Keltari

Posted 2013-05-09T02:10:03.570

Reputation: 57 019