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 I’m pretty sure most of you are already familiar
with Cooler Master, so I’ll skip right to the point. After Cooler Master
released the Musketeer series of system monitors and the Cavalier series of
cases, the logical question was what would Cooler Master apply the analog look
to next? Today I get to take a look at that item – The CoolDrive 5. Sporting
two color changing analog dials and a 40mm cooling fan, this 5.25” bay device
is certainly cool in both senses of the word. I’ll put it through its paces
and make sure it’s worth your dollars…so on with the review!
Packaging & Contents
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The CoolDrive 5 showed up in the usual Cooler
Master purple box, which was extensively covered with numbers, pictures, and
propaganda.
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The device is packaged much the same way as the
rest of the Musketeer line, with a plastic cover and two small Styrofoam end
caps. Also included are a manual, two motherboard header extension cables, a
temperature probe, and a small bag of hardware. Those of you who have been
watching this line for a while or already own a Musketeer should have a red
flag up at this point…where’s the color changing button brackets?
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The answer is that Cooler Master finally figured
out that what we really want is a small button right on the front of the
device. No need to mess around behind your case or fool around with a
not-so-good fitting 3.5” bracket any more. The second button controls the fan
speed, selecting either a high or low setting.
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The REALLY sharp eyes out there may have already
spotted the fact that the dials on the CoolDrive 5 do not perfectly match up
with their Musketeer brethren. These dials feature a slightly larger and more
rounded chrome ring than what we’ve seen before…whether that’s a good or bad
thing I’ll leave up to you. The dials flanking the intake fan represent HDD
activity on the left, and temperature on the right. These two displays can
change into the same seven colors that were available on the Musketeer 2.
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