Spire Flowcooler Review
RPM’s. We all love high RPM’s. From fans, motors, and hard drives, RPM’s provide us with how fast these things perform. However, hard drives with high RPM’s such as 7,200RPM, 10,000 RPM and 12,000 RPM’s introduce heat. Heat can be a determining factor between being stable or being unstable, or failure or non-failure. We all know that components like to be cool. So what is one way of beating the heat? Today we will be taking a quick look at the Spire Flowcooler and see if it can beat the heat.
Specs
- For Hard Disks at 7200 Rpm or higher.
- Dimensions Frame: 130x100x17 mm, Double Fan: 50x50x10 mm
- Sleeve Bearing
- Rated speed: 4800 RPM
- Noise level: 29.0 dBA
- Air flow: 2 x 9.0 CFM at 4800 RPM
- Current A 0.10 A
- Life Hours Sleeve: 30.000 / Ball: 50.000
- Connector 4 Pin, power supply
- Application: On the rear of all 3.5 inch hard drives.
The Flowcooler comes packaged in a attractive box. What is included with the unit are the Flowcooler unit and mounting screws. It operates via 4-pin Molex connection that is wrapped neatly in sleeving.
The unit fits on the bottom of any 3.5 inch hard drives. The fans are 50mm in size and there are two of them blowing air towards the hard disk at a rated 2x9 CFM’s each thus making an effective 18CFM’s total.
Installation
It goes as follows
- 1. Lay down your hard drive and the Flowcooler
-
2. Flip your hard drive and screw in one side of the screws into your hard drive.
- 3. Screw in the other side. It was a bit tight, but it did fit. Now you put it back in your case.
Testing
Testing will consist of recording temperatures without the flowcooler and with the flowcooler with the iCute Dual LED Thermometer. It will be provided in a table. The hard disk I use is a Maxtor 40GB D740X-6L. Idle will consist of not doing anything for 30 minutes and load will be playing UT2003 for 1-hour.
Results
| Before Temps | After Temps |
| Idle: 36c | Idle: 32c |
| Load: 43c | Load: 38c |
There were no problems to report. I would like to mention that I felt that the Flowcooler was a bit loud and will introduce noise to your case. Since these were two 50mm fans, I expected it bring more noise. The Flowcooler lowered temperatures from 3-5 degrees better than before.
Conclusion
The flowcooler does actually make a difference as the table shows, thus letting the hard drive run cooler.
Overall the Spire FlowCooler is a good product with a cheap price tag.
I rate the Spire Flowcooler a…
9/10!
Pros and Cons
+
Great construction
+ Affordable
+ Aluminum
- Noise
Let me thank Spire for sending this to be reviewed. Visit them at www.spire-coolers.com and view their line of products with great value.
