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Installation & Testing
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I removed a WDJ2000 SATA hard drive from my AMD
Athlon system and installed it into the CoolDrive Lite. Installation was very
easy and quick, although it was a little bit of a tight squeeze to slide it
into the Logisys Phantom case that housed the system.
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I chose to use the Phantom for this review
because it provides a 120mm fan directly in front of the HDD cage, which would
allow me to check the temps with and without that big fan, and with the hard
disk in the CoolDrive Lite. Load temps were checked with both a defrag and
about 30 minutes or so of Unreal Tournament ’04. The drives sitting directly
in front of the 120mm fan posted the best temps, followed by the CoolDrive
Lite and then the drives in the bay without the 120mm fan powered up. This
didn’t surprise me much, and the spread was not very big in any event…about 5
degrees total. Some cases without the large intake, such as the Cooler Master
Cavalier 1 and the Enermax CS-A666TA would benefit from using a device like
this.
Conclusions
The CoolDrive Lite is a good choice for systems
that need extra HDD cooling that the chassis can’t deliver. I certainly like
the all aluminum construction and the new blower assembly, as well as the mesh
look of the front panel. If you’re into having a silent computer, the
CoolDrive Lite is certainly worth checking out. Although it is not perfectly
silent, it does not have the whine that you usually find with the 40mm fans on
similar products. Expect to see the CoolDrive Lite going for about $30.00 USD
at your favorite vendors., and be sure to check out the latest information
over on the Cooler
Master Webpage. EM Recommended!
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Pros |
Cons |
- Sleek Look - Mesh
- Quiet blower
- All aluminum construction
- Reduces vibration & noise
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- Blower doesn't move much air
- Needs a spare 5.25" bay
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Questions? Comments?
Discuss them
here!
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