Written By:
Date Posted: May 24, 2002

are well known for their Orbs. Golden Orbs, Blue Orbs, Super Orbs, Dragon Orbs, etc. Their more conventional coolers, such as the Volcano series, have also been quite popular. They have products for video cards, memory, and now, hard drives. With the average IDE hard drive spinning at 7200RPM, in a cramped, or poorly cooled case, you risk disk damage due to the heat possibly warping the platters.

Granted, the previous example is probably an extreme scenario, but heat in general is bad. Your hard drives are probably one of the busiest system components, spinning up whenever you change web pages, or playing a game. I'll bet if you power down and touch the hard drive chassis right now, it'll feel fairly warm to the touch. Of course, the hard drive isn't the only heat source in your PC, and there are several other components that produce a fair amount of heat. How much heat is probably a big question mark, as other than the CPU, your motherboard doesn't really provide any way to monitor the temperature of your video card, or your memory.

Let's say your system cooling is in check, and in fact, it's more than enough. Chances are, your PC makes enough noise to rival a Californian earthquake. Alright, maybe it's not that bad, but unless you have a rheobus, your fans are probably spinning at 100% capacity, making a hella lot of noise to keep an idle system cool.

That, my friends, brings us to Thermaltake's latest invention, the Hardcano. The Hardcanos are hard drive coolers that have built in temperature probes to monitor the heat radiating from your various components. The Hardcano 5, which we'll look at today, even has a fan control switch built in to slow down a fan, of your choosing. In case you're simply web browsing, instead of playing video games, you can lower fan speeds to a lower level, thus lowering the noise.

Specifications

P/N A1282
Fan Dimension 40x40x20 mm
Rated Voltage 12V
Started Voltage 7.0V
Rated Current 0.11A
Power Input 1.32W
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

Thermaltake packages everything you need to setup the Hardcano 5. You got the thermal tape, mounting screws galore and a 3 to 4 pin adapter. It arrives about 90% assembled, and all you have to do is install your hard drive, and close the top cover. Fabricated out of aluminum, it'll match any silver coloured aluminum case nicely, as well as dissipate heat (due to aluminum's thermal properties) at the same time.

The top cover was something of an enigma to me. It sure adds a very complete look to the package, but I didn't really see the point. Don't get me wrong, as it's well made and looks great, but it's going into the case anyways. If this was an external unit, great, but it's addition probably just added 10$ to the price.

Once we remove the cover, we can see the rail for mounting your hard drive. Nothing much to say, as installation is as simple as putting in four screws.

Anyhow, fairly detailed instructions are included, so don't worry about messing up. If you do, well, you shouldn't be opening your case up to begin with.

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