We all love the latest technologies and look to improve our every day living environment. We all want to live in a world as you see in the latest Sci-Fi movies. Unfortunately that isn't so, at least in the computer industry. Computer advancement took a giant step forward the past few years but the battle with heat took a step back, at least with Intel.
Everything inside your system emits heat, and the faster they run, the more heat is released. The main concern of overheating issues used to be with the CPU alone, but that is no longer the case. Video cards were next in line for the need of active cooling and motherboard chipsets followed. There is one crucial piece of hardware that called for active cooling; and that is the hard disk drive.
Western Digital's announcement of the Raptor was an eye-opener. It offered near SCSI performance without extreme price and the need for an additional controller. However, the high RPM Raptors released much more heat than the traditional standard hard drives. There were even reports of these hard drives failing due to excessive overheating. Systems with low airflow posed as a threat when combined with the use of these Raptors. Cooling the hard drives is an easy task; a front intake case fan will definitely suffice. For the silent enthusiasts who need 100% silence, there are heat-pipes and hard drive cages to help with cooling. Although it's not as efficient, it still works nonetheless. For extreme enthusiasts who want the best performance available, water-cooling the hard drives is the way to go. I believe the first attempt for such a device came from Koolance. They required you to pour sticky fluid adhesive on the bottom of the hard drive in order to mount the hard drive cooler. Today, we take a look at Asetek's version of the hard drive cooler which utilizes a much friendlier method for installation.
