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  • Slaimus - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    CM makes two different 5.25 cages. I got the new aluminum one, and it may work better than the steel one that comes with the case.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
  • PAPutzback - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    I think this artilce was just clips posted from random sites and made up numbers. I want proof.
  • Bozo Galora - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    Cool HDD fail quicker
    Keep em hot, fellas - lol

    see section 3.4
    http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.p...">http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.p...
  • Darkness Flame - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    Think about it like this; in a lot of cases, the air coming into the system has to flow past the hard drives. Besides the fact that they are like bricks obstructing it, the outside air, usually between 20-30C, has to run past things that are 40+C. Both of those things might affect the temperatures of other air cooled devices in the case. If you could move the hard drive out of that path; whether cooled or not, you'd help the intake of cool air into the system. So, for cases that have a lot of exhaust fans and fewer intake fans, this might help them. However, it would only be a few degrees, but for air cooling, that can be a lot.
  • araczynski - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    all you naysayers need to shut up, you're instilling distrust in the consumer and ruining the financial success of my new inventions; the mouse cooler and keyboard cooler.

    guaranteed to get your frag count higher.
  • Dribble - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    The load temps of your hd ranged from 39 to 44 degrees depending on cooling - well within the recommended range of most hds (which is 55 degrees).

    Q: What proof have you got that this is going to make the slightest bit of difference to your hard disk?

    A: None because there is none because it probably makes no difference whatsoever.
  • bob4432 - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    anybody know how speedfan info compares to what anandtech used in this article?
  • Palamedes - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    I tried to silence my HDDs some time ago and I've spent hours and hours finding the perfect solution. After all, I came up with two models, a HDD silencer by Scythe and a very simple, yet effective model for less than 20 EUR at my place, which has to be seen as a 30 US$-equivalent, even if that does not correspond to current exchange rates mathematically :)

    http://www.ichbinleise.de/Zubehoer/HDD-Zubehoer/HD...">http://www.ichbinleise.de/Zubehoer/HDD-...mmung/ic...

    Believe it or not: this VERY, VERY simple thing quietened my drives completely and -most astounding- they now run cooler than before, even if you consider, that both drives are sandwiched between two foam plastic layers. It seems the metal contact at the sides cools them down to a max of 37°C, even if room temperature reaches up to 26°C.
  • Pyrokinetic - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    I use the Zalman units on two 74GB raptors and the heatpipes do work quite well as they get noticably warm to the touch (I also applied some dots of Artic Silver 5 to the sides of the drive before mounting the coolers). I have a CM Stacker 810 with the hard drives and coolers mounted in a passive cooling configuration. My case has mesh bay covers, so the setup works with the airflow of my case. Works great with no noise -- perfect!
  • Acanthus - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    Say that fail rates for HDs dont change at all with temperature, and that temps dont alter reliability at all in the 1st place.

    In my humble opinion, this review is kind of moot and you'd be better off spending the extra $25 on a more reliable or better performing HD in the 1st place.
  • mmntech - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    Even without this thing, the drive doesn't even get hot enough to cause any alarm. When it comes to electronics, 37c idle, 44c load isn't hot. Even with the iSURF, the temps aren't significantly cooler to warrant the $25. The drive used here is a 15,000rpm one, which isn't something most people (even enthusiasts) are likely have. Most tower cases already have a fan integrated into the drive bay anyway, which should be plenty for the average HDD. You'll benefit more from tweaking in-case airflow paths or buying higher performance case fans.
  • yyrkoon - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    That may be true but what if the drives are a contributing factor to a higher case temperature, and such a device could help keep the case temperature down? Granted, this device does not look as though it would help any since it would just be removing said heat from the drives, but still putting that heat back into the case.
  • feraltoad - Friday, August 1, 2008 - link

    I second that. Unless you need/want to relocate your HDD to a 5.25 bay then those looking for more performance shld put the money to any other component in their PC.

    That said, it is a very attractive product, and if u alrdy have everything else in the PC up to spec then go for it!
  • AmberClad - Thursday, July 31, 2008 - link

    I'm using a CM 590, which has a drive cage for HDDs like the CM Stacker Evo that was tested. I've found that removing the three bay cover filters in front of cage fan lowers temps noticeably (also makes it more dangerous for errant fingers and toes...). Normal SMART drive temps I see are 26C to 29C, but that's with a standard 7200RPM SATA, not a Raptor.

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