The Tech Zone Inclose Baycooler 2 Hard Drive Cooler Review

The drive I'm gonna torture for this review is my IBM Deskstar DJNA-371350 hard drive. It's a 13.5gb Ultra-ATA hard drive that's 7200RPM and has 2mb of cache. It took me a little while to figure out how to effectively benchmark the BayCooler II's performance. I used a thermistor connected to the JTPWR thermistor head on my Asus P3V4X mobo to monitor drive temps. I then taped the thermistor to surface of the hard drive with electrical tape.

I ended up using the IBM "Drive Fitness Test" which checks all performance aspects of the hard drive for potential failure. The Advanced Test includes a really intensive surface scan which can really create some heat from the prolonged disk access. The complete test is approximately 25 minutes long. I took two sets of measurements. I measured the surface temperature with and without the BayCooler II and before and after the Drive Fitness Test. I did wait long enough for the surface temp to fall back down to pre-Drive Fitness Test levels before I started the BayCooler II tests. IBM's Drive Fitness Test is a DOS based program and I took the temperature readings via the mainboard BIOS information. I used my RadioShack digital thermometer for measuring room temperatures. Based on that, here's what I came up with:

Scenario

Ambient Room Temp

Mobo Temp

Hard Drive Temp

Before Drive Fitness Test

Hard Drive Temp After Drive Fitness Test

Hard Drive without BayCooler II installed

25.8º C

78.4º F

26º C

77º F

31º C

87.8º F

37º C

98.6º F

Hard Drive with BayCooler II installed

25.6º C

78.4º F

26º C

77º F

28º C

82.4º F

29º C

84.2º F

The BayCooler II performs almost as well as inClose claims! Gee! What a novel concept... The thing that impressed me the most was the fact that the BayCooler II kep the surface temp almost identical to the temp when it wasn't under load... Very nice! Since we've been in the era of a fast and powerful computing for awhile now and technology is improving exponentially on a daily basis. As the performance improves by leaps and bounds, the heat emitted by computer components rises at the same rate. It's a simple to add another fan to attempt to solve heat issues. Unfortunately, in most applications, these devices merely circulates hot air throughout the case. That definitely does not do much to achieve the goal of actually lowering the temperature of many components inside the case. If the temperature is consistently at a extreme and dangerous levels the chances are pretty high that system malfunctions will follow. Your hard drive should be a priority to keep at decent operating temperatures. The Baycooler II is an ideal yet simple, cost effective solution to protect your valuable data from hard drive heat failure. It has a price tag a little bit higher than some people would normally consider... But, I feel the benefits far exceed the cost! I highly recommend this and I'm gonna keep this one installed in my system! Yessir! I like it a lot!