76 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005
reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
I
n a typical PC, your hard drive resides inside
a bay with a fan mounted in front. Cool air
passes over the drive and keeps it chilly. This
setup works just fine for most people. But
we’re not most people. We want our drives
to be quieter, and we don’t want loud fans
spinning just to keep them cool. That’s where
a drive enclosure comes in: It reduces vibra-
tion transmitted from the drive to the case
(dampening associated noise in the process)
by securing the drive with rubber gaskets
and cooling it with a small enclosed fan. The
purpose is to keep your drive cool and quiet,
and we’re happy to report that the two drive
enclosures we examined this month fulfill that
promise in spades.
—JOSH NOREMSILVERSTONE FP53
We’ve long lusted over Silverstone’s statu-
esque cases, but this is the first time we’ve
tested one of the company’s hard drive
enclosures. We had high expectations, and
we were not let down.
The FP53 sports a simple design: an
all-aluminum outer body, a small, 4cm inter-
nal fan, and a thermal pad that transfers
heat from the drive to the outer shell, which
doubles as a heatsink. The internal fan spins
at 5,000rpm, but it’s so small that it’s practi-
cally inaudible. Silverstone claims the fan
puts out 25dBA, which seems plausible—it
was perfectly quiet to our ears.
The FP53 did a fantastic job cooling
our DiamondMax 10 test drive, which
became only 1 C hotter than it was when
the test case’s 12cm intake fan was blow-
ing on it. The drive’s operating temperatureof 28.7 C inside the
FP53 was 16 C cooler
than with no cooling at
all. That’s impressive,
especially considering
the drive was signifi-
cantly quieter inside
the FP53 enclosure than
it was hard-mounted
in our Silverstone
TJ03 test case.
Color us impressed.
The FP53 did everything
it was supposed to do
and it performed beauti-
fully. Given its low price, you should drop
what you’re doing right now and buy one.COOLER MASTER
COOLDRIVE LITE
Cooler Master’s take on the alumi-
num heatsink/fan drive bay is similar to
Silverstone’s (this isn’t rocket science,
after all), but CM goes one step further by
including two thermal pads—one for each
side of the drive. The CoolDrive Lite also
uses a slightly larger fan—
4.4cm versus Silverstone’s
4cm—which spins at a rela-
tively slow 3,000rpm. Cooler
Master says the fan puts out
23dBA, which is 2dBA less
than the Silverstone unit,
but it’s a moot point because
both enclosures were excep-
tionally quiet to our ears
during testing.
Still, although our test
drive was quieter in the
Cooler Master enclosure than
it was hard-mounted inside
the case, it was slightly more
audible than when it was inthe Silverstone FP53. At idle the drive is
totally silent, but during seek operations
we could hear the drive operating quite
clearly, whereas with the Silverstone unit
we had to strain to make out the familiar
“tick,tick,tick” of the read/write heads flick-
ing back and forth. Obviously, this is a sub-
jective measurement, as no microphones or
decibel meters were used, but to our own
ears the drive was a smidge louder in the
CoolDrive. Both enclosures made the drive
more quiet than when it was hard-mounted
inside the case, however.
The temps from the CoolDrive were
less than 1 C higher than those of the
Silverstone unit, so we consider this cate-
gory a wash. The drive remained sufficiently
cool at all times. For comparison, the test
drive was less than 2 C warmer in the
CoolDrive than it was with a 12cm case fan
blowing on it, which is amazing considering
how small the fan on this thing is.
The CoolDrive is impressive—but
it’s just a bit less impressive than
Silverstone’s FP53.Foolin’ with Hard Drive Coolin’
Two enclosures attempt to tame a wily DiamondMax 10
The FP53 has that distinctive Silverstone look.
The enclosure’s 4cm fan is mounted just behind the
mesh grill. $30, http://www.coolermaster.comCOOLDRIVE LITEHOT POCKET
Also cool and quiet, easy
to assemble
HOT DRIVE 9
Not as cook or as quiet as
the FP53$30, http://www.silverstonetek.comSILVERSTONE FP53DRIVE BAY
Cool, quiet, sexy, easy to
install, and affordable.
MICHAEL BAY
Doesn’t cool a drive as
much as a noisy case fan.The CoolDrive Lite is a simpler version of
the CoolDrive, sans temperature and fan
speed sensors.MA XIMUM
PCKICKASS
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