Hard drive heat can be a serious issue, especially if they're of the 7200rpm variety. Staggering your drives are a good idea, but I've seen a lot of setups where the hard drive is sandwiched between optical drives, or other hard drives. We know heat is bad, and excessive hard drive heat can result in a loss of data, or even worse, drive failure.

We looked at the Hardcano 5 last month, and today, we'll be checking out the . Much like the other Hardcanos, this unit provides hard drive cooling, as well as temperature monitoring.

Thermaltake packages everything you need in a neat little bundle. There are instructions, drive rails, plenty of screws, and the Hardcano itself.

Unlike the Hardcano 5, there are no fan switches to control your fans this time around. The Hardcano 2 (as the name implies) has two LCDs this time, and two thermal probes. The LCDs are protected by a plastic film, so there is little to worry about if you're concerned about them being scratched while shipping. I actually prefer the look of the Hardcano 2 over the Hardcano 5, as with 2 LCDs, the appearance is more uniform.

The LCDs are battery powered, so the temperature will be displayed at all times. This can actually be a handy feature, as you'll have a zero point if you want to see your temperatures from "computer off", to idle, to full load. I don't believe they draw a lot of power, so the batteries should last a while.

Specifications

P/N A1282
Fan Dimension 40x40x20 mm
Rated Voltage 12V
Started Voltage 7.0V
Rated Current 0.11A
FAN Speed 5000±10% RPM
Air Pressure 1.50mm- H2O
Max. Air Flow 5.1CFM
Noise 23dBa
Bearing Type Sleeve bearing
Life Time 30,000 hours
Connector 3 PIN

Like the Hardcano 5, the Hardcano 2 is fabricated from aluminum. I've commented in our last review that because the hard drive only rests on rails, don't expect the Hardcano chassis to do much for the hard drive cooling. It will match up nicely for those of you who own aluminum cases.

There is a little more assembly required with the Hardcano 2, as you'll need to attach the drive rails to the unit, and then the hard drive. There isn't any top cover this time around, which to me isn't a big deal since it just adds to the cost of the overall unit, and doesn't do all that much for cooling.

The thermal probes (there are two of them) are extrememly thin, and can fit in a lot of tight spaces. Although we only used them for hard drive temperature tests in this review, you can use them almost anywhere.

Thermaltake demonstrates using the probe on CPUs for example, and as you'll see in future reviews, we'll be testing heatsinks with the Hardcano 2. The probes are attached to long wires, and although I didn't measure them, I don't think you'll have any problems reaching areas in even the full tower cases. You do have to take some care in handling them though, as the probes are attached to thin wires that don't take kindly to being tugged on.

Performance

For testing, the only thing that was important to us was the hard drive temperatures, since this device is marketed as a hard drive cooler. The 40mm fan, as in our Hardcano 5 review, is woefully underpowered, and we expect similar results as before.

The hard drive used was an IBM Deskstar 40GB. To stress it, I started a defrag of multiple partitions, and took the reading, with the fan on and off, when the temperature topped off. We took idle temperatures as well, with the fan on and off.

Not much of a difference here, as the hard drive isn't really doing anything anyhow. With barely a half degree between having the fan on, and having the fan off, there isn't much to write home about. Despite being an "open" design, the temperatures matched those of the Hardcano 5, and it's "closed" design. Let's see how it does when we put the hard drive through some work...

Exactly the same results. At 0.4C difference, I can pretty much conclude (again) that the 40mm fan isn't doing anything. Keep in mind that like before, the hard drive is only resting on the aluminum standoffs, and maybe a design where more of the hardcano makes contact with the hard drive would result in better scores.

Final Words

Like the Hardcano 5, we came away from our Hardcano 2 review with mixed feelings. As a hard drive cooler, it simply doesn't fit the bill. The 40mm fan is lacking, and if you got a RAID array, investing in multiple Hardcanos for the sole purpose of cooling the drives is pointless. Because of the size of the Hardcanos, I don't really see how you can mod the cooler with bigger fans. Perhaps if there were double the fans, or even triple, the performance would undoubtably be improved, but at the expense of losing the LCDs.

The temperature probe and LCDs are quite useful, and I'd recommend the unit for this feature alone. I actually prefer this device over the Hardcano 5 for a few reasons. It's cheaper, which is always good, and it has 2 thermal probes and LCDs. I also find two LCDs nicer looking than the LCD/Switch combo found in the Hardcano 5. Compared to the Digi-doc, the Hardcano 2 rings in at about 20$ cheaper, but lacks the Doc's fan controls. The aluminum finish is nice, and will look a lot better on aluminum cases than beige devices.

Hard drive cooling was a dissapointment. Truth be told, the majority of cases sold today have some type of hard drive cooling built in already. The only real use of the device is the temperature monitoring, and it does that very well.

Thermaltake:

Pros: Easy installation, multiple use LCDs and temperature probe, looks great.

Cons: Doesn't do much for hard drive cooling.

Bottom Line: Don't expect miraculous temperature drops with the Hardcano 2. In fact, it's true value lies in it's dual temperature probes and dual LCDs.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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