Introduction
Introduction
Heatpipes, heatpipes and more heatpipes...While the technology itself isn't all that new, and we've seem them integrated into CPU cooling components in the mainstream for about 2 years now this is the first product to use a heatpipe for HDD cooling.
There have also been at least as many HDD's coolers and designs as there have been CPU coolers. Most use 40mm fans and while effective, I've always thought they were an unnecessary additional expense and add extra noise to a system when all HDD's really need is a modicum of airflow to keep cool.
The Zalman piqued my interest though for 2 reasons; One it's got no moving parts meaning it's totally silent and two, it's got an array of magical heatpipes. This didn't make alotta sense to me, especially since heatpipes need an apprecable temperature differential on either end to be effective. I mean, the ends of the heatpipes are connected to opposite sides of the drive which means (according to my understanding of heatpipe mechanics), at the most it would balance out the temps of the drive sides. While it does look pretty (and I'm a sucker for blue anodizing and copper together), the actual cooling effect of the heatpipes in this particular product is dubious at best just by looking at the packaging and the concept. Still, $35 is not an insignifigant price for something that already appears to be purely an aesthetic item. So is it a worthwhile purchase?
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