Conclusion

Summing up the results of our today’s test session I can say that the devices we talked about in this roundup will be primarily useful for those who need a quiet system case. According to our tests, contemporary hard disk drives do not really need any additional cooling. As we have already said before, if you are still concerned with the temperature mode of your hard drive, then simply install an additional 120 mm fan and the problem will be solved once and for all. None of the tested cooling solutions could ensure the same thermal conditions as a 120 mm fan.

However, the acoustic performance seems to be a more acute matter these days and Scythe Quiet Drive would be the best choice for resolving it. By using this chassis, you will be able to almost completely eliminate the noise generated by the HDD. Only during random seek operations, you can notice it against the background of a noiseless system case. In all other modes when a HDD inside Scythe Quiet Drive is installed into a silent computer system, you won’t be able to distinguish the noise from the HDD. Moreover, inside this box the drive won’t get any warmer even after a long-term load, unlike the situation when the drive is installed into the default system case chassis. The only drawback of Scythe Quiet Drive solution is its excessive length of 198 mm. had it been about 20 mm shorter, it would be way easier to install into a system case.

Closely following the leader are three devices: Tuniq Sanctum, Scythe Himuro and Xilence HD Cooler CL. The first one is just a tiny bit behind the leader in acoustic readings, but at the same time is 10 mm longer than Scythe Quiet Drive. The other two solutions are considerably shorter and simpler to put together that is why they are worth checking out as well. Moreover, all three of them cost less than Scythe Quiet Drive, which is also important. The least effective cooling solutions for hard drives is Xilencer XTOR, while GlacialTech IceCrown 1000 doesn’t improve the acoustic performance of the HDD installed into it at all, but cools it down quite well instead.