Directory  Reviews Cooling Reviews |
| Vantec Vortex Hard Drive Cooler Review |
|
|
|
| Thursday, 30 August 2007 | |
|
Page 5 of 6 Performance After the installation, the drive has a sleek look, especially when there are multiple stacked coolers. These coolers definitely have a utilitarian air to them. The LED PCB does a quality job of displaying the necessary information. The numbers are bright enough to be seen at a distance, but not overbearing (who needs another night light?). But enough about aesthetics; let us move on to the performance!   In order to keep track of temperatures, fastsilicon.com uses a free-ware program called HDD thermometer v1.3. The S.M.A.R.T. technology available in almost every modern drive provides all the temperature data needed and makes a good standard to test the accuracy of the included thermometer. This program accesses that data and logs it automatically. In order to stress test the drives, fastsilicon.com is using winrar and 14 gigs worth of extractable data. As the drive initializes, they are all at room temp. Once the server OS boots and stabilizes (idle/fan off), the temperatures all read an identical 44 C, or 111F. This is a good sign that all of the drives are in an identical environment. This also means that the installation is successful. One item of interest that is a mild negative is that the Vantec Vortex powers on in a "fresh" state. Every time the cooler turns on, it cannot remember the previous state prior to powering down. Having to remember to turn on the fan every time is a nuisance, but this is not a huge issue if it stays on all the time. Vantec apparently did not think about this, or perhaps it was ruled out as a cost issue. Now that a standard temperature reading is taken, it is time to take this cooler for a spin. Pressing the button provides a satisfying spin up noise and raises the fan to the low setting. When in this state, the idle drive indicates that the temperature is dropping to 33C, or 91F. Spinning the fan up 2000rpm drops the drive a total of 11C, or 18F, toward ambient temperature. This is a noticeable and significant decrease in temperature. The internal temperature readings are approximately two degrees off at 35C, or 95F. This difference in temperature is completely normal with the position of the thermometer in relation to the normal heat dissipation from the source. This means that the sensor is accurate. Quality of components can have a big effect on the accuracy of sensors. Pressing the button again raises the fan speed another 1700rpm to the high setting. In this mode, the drive drops an additional 5C, or 9F, to a final temp of 30C, or 86F. The internal readings sat two degrees above this at 32C, or 89.6F. This means that the Vantec Vortex cooler can decrease idle temps as much as 14C, or 25 F. This is only 31 percent of the touted 40 percent decrease. Now, it is time to pull out the stress test! A real world activity that lights up a drive more than almost anything is extracting a large iso image to the drive that the winrar archive is present. Not only does it need to read massive amounts of data, but it also needs to write that data at the same time. For this test, an archive with 14 gigs of data is extracted. This same iso image is extracted onto the four drives independently to see if the results are reproducible. The original configuration provides a final temperature of 49C, or 120F. These temperatures are rather hot due to the close nature of packed active drives. When in the cooler, it is another story entirely. With the fan off, the test produces temperatures of 48C, or 118F. With the fan at its lowest setting, the run results in readings of 38C, or 100F. The final and last setting of high produces the most impressive results with the final readings weighing in at 34C, or 93F. The highest difference of 15C, or 27F, is still only a 31 percent improvement over stock. However, it just means that in this particular setup, the Vantec Vortex only achieves three fourths of the projected performance. This is still respectable, but not quite what the manufacturer states. The variables are far too great to challenge the validity of the optimistic bar they set for themselves. 
|