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Features
The
device itself looks and feels well made, and is not very heavy. The front of
the device matches up perfectly with the Eudemon Fan controller and Transfer
bracket that we’ve looked at in the past. It also bears Silverstone’s classy
brushed aluminum finish.
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I
rather like the metal grille on the front of the device…it’s made of the same
material as the Eudemon vents were. It’s solid and cannot be pushed in without
serious effort.
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Opening up the device requires the removal of four screws on the bottom of the
chassis. This reveals a small 40mm fan that will suck air in through the
grille and across the surface of the drive. The fan is powered with a standard
4 pin Molex connector. The HDD itself will be mounted on four small plastic
grommets, to reduce vibration and silence the drive as well. The top panel has
a contact pad, to aid in vibration dampening and to assist in thermal
transfer. The rear of the FP53 is open to allow power and data cables to get
in.
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This
is the only item I didn’t like. The screws are buried underneath these holes,
and makes reinstallation of the screws a bit of a challenge.
Installation
& Testing
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I
installed one of my personal favorite hard disk drives into the FP53…the
WD2000JD 200Gig 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive from Western Digital. Installation
went easily, and the drive was secured to the bottom half of the FP53 with the
supplied screws, and then the chassis was re assembled.
The FP53 installs into a 5.25” bay just like any other CD-ROM would, and you
can use screws or a tool free system to do so. The tool free rig on our
Cavalier 1 worked easily with this device, as did the rails on the Z-Alien.
I
tested the FP53 by running the burn-in wizard from the SiSoftware Sandra
Suite, and placed a probe in the FP53 and one on an identical drive in the
system. Both probes were affixed to the central spindle of the disks. I ran
the system for an hour, and then measured the temp difference between the two
drives.
|
SST-FP53 |
Other Drive |
| 38ºC |
42ºC |
Four
degrees is not shabby at all, and it will make a difference over the long term
life of your hard drives. I spent some of the burn in time listening to the
two WD2000 drives, and found the one in the FP53 to be quieter, even with the
additional fan.
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