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Ultra Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes


Date
: 03/1/08 – 02:50:55 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Ultra Products

Ultra products is no stranger to any reader here at Overclockers Online. They are a company that makes many different products from power supplies and cases to flash drives and system RAM. If you need a component for your PC, chances are Ultra has you covered.

Today I get to take a look at their latest hard drive cooler, the 3.5′ Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes. While Ultra usually has unique product names, their line of hard drive coolers do not get such treatment. This hard drive cooler promises to keep your hard drive as cool as possible without generating any noise. Read on to find out just how well this little cooler works.

Page 2 : Package and Specifications

Let's first take a tour of the package before moving inside.

The top of the box has a picture of the hard drive cooler and a list of features on a background that looks to be a view of the earth with the sun rising. Also listed is a sticker informing you the hard drive cooler comes with a 3 year limited warranty.

The bottom of the box has the same background along with the features and specifications listed out. You also get another picture of the hard drive cooler with the different parts labeled.

The sides of the box really don't show anything new, but give you another picture along with the product name

On the end of the box you get a listing of the contents contained inside.

The specifications and features are listed all over the box and here is a rundown of what the Ultra Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes brings taken directly from Ultra's website:

Specifications
* Heatpipe Material: Sintered Powder Heatpipe
* Heatsink Material: Aluminum
* Grounding: Wire Grounding
* Dimensions: 143 x 122 x 42mm
* Weight: 402g
Features
* Passive Thermal solution for Hard Drives
* High performance sintered powder heatpipe dissipates heat efficiently
* Rubber dampers reduce HDD noise and vibration
* Top heatsink fins provide an outstanding cooling surface area
* Fan-less operation

Page 3 : Contents

After viewing the package, it's time to move inside and get our first real look at Ultra's hard drive cooler.

Opening up the box we have the hard drive cooler tucked amid some foam with some bags containing the mounting hardware tucked away in their own compartment.

The only documentation included is the installation instructions printed in color on a small piece of cardboard. Instructions are very clear, simple, but clear and really leave no questions about installation.

Mounting hardware includes four dampers that are lined in a soft rubber, four damper screws, four hard drive screws and a grounding wire.

Taking a look at the cooler itself, we can see the finned heatsink on top along with the four heatpipes running from left to right. Four spring loaded screws hold the top in place.

On the bottom you can see the surface is smooth all around. The eight holes are where the heatpipes fit into the sides.

As you can see the spring loaded screws will ensure the top heatsink fits snug against the hard drive body. The larger hole on the bottom left is for the hard drive screw while the two smaller holes provide different locations to install the dampers.

Page 4 : Installation

Hard drive coolers are typically pretty easy to install, let's see how Ultra's Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes makes out.

First you install the hard drive into the cooler itself. Basically it amounts to lining up one of the screw holes on the hard drive and tightening the screw. As show earlier with the spring loaded screws, a little force was needed to force the top heatsink portion up. After you line up the first one, the next three are a snap.

With the hard drive installed you can see the upper heatsink is pushed up a bit making firm contact. The instructions say to tighten the screws, but I found the tension was fine as it came.

Here is a closer look at how the upper heatsink connects with the hard drive. The top of this hard drive is flat and it makes even contact with the surface.

Next you connect one end of the grounding wire around one of the posts of a damper and screw it into the cooler.

And finally you slide the unit into an empty bay and screw it in using the included screws. A few things of note, the damper screws are a different size than the standard screws for hard drives, so some hole openings may be too small for the included screws.

Another issue I had with installing had to do with the tool less design of the CoolerMaster Cosmos. Since the damper posts are slightly different than the standard rails, they cannot be locked into place using this particular tool less system. While I can't be certain it would be an issue with other tool less designs, I imagine similar problems would be encountered.

Page 5 : Testing

Below are the system specifications that will be used for testing. Temperature results were obtained using Motherboard Monitor 5.

CPU: Athlon64 3700+
MB: DFI LP NF4 Ultra-D
RAM: G.Skill 2x1GB PC-4000
GPU: XFX 7800GT
PSU: Ultra X3 1000W
HD: Western Digital 40GB IDE, Seagate 80GB IDE
DVD-Rom: Lite-On 18x DVD Burner – SATA
Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000
Ambient Temperature: 24-25C

Since the Cosmos uses removable modules for hard drive mounting, to achieve a more even comparison for temperatures the hard drive was mounted into one of the 5 1/5′ drive bays using drive rails. Ultra's Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes was mounted in the same location with the hard drive for comparison temps. I have also included the temperature readings from the hard drive while mounted in the Cosmos hard drive module.

To reach idle results I recorded temperatures after two hours of inactivity of the system. Load temps were the highest temperature achieved during testing. Testing consisted of moving 5 gigabytes worth of data onto and off of the hard drive and then running disk defragmentation.

I'll be honest to say that I was quite surprise by the results. The idle temps were nearly identical but to see a 5 degree difference in load temps really surprised me. The numbers obviously speak for themselves and Ultra's Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes obviously does its job well and pretty much matches the results of the stock setup in the Cosmos.

Page 6 : Conclusion

I honestly walked into doing this review rather skeptical of a passive cooling solution on a hard drive and came away quite impressed. The Ultra's MSRP of $42.99 is a bit hard to swallow for a hard drive cooler, luckily you can easily find it for $25 or less. For that price it is a great deal if you are looking to keep your hard drive cool. However, if your hard drive already has some active cooling from your case, you may only get minimal benefit from moving your hard drive into Ultra's passive cooler.

The only blemish on this particular product is the way the mounting hardware is set up which can cause issues with some cases tool less designs. With Ultra's design on the Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes, it works rather well in an area that is void of any air movement. Unfortunately I was unable to test the cooler with any sort of active cooling but I can speculate results could only be better.

Positives

• Good performance

• Attractive

Negatives

• Potential mounting issues

Overclockers Online would like to thank Ultra for supplying their 3.5′ Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes for review.