Vizo Voyager Hard Drive Cooler

Author:  Matthew Homan Date:  2007.04.10 Topic:  Cooling Provider:  Vizo Manufacturer:  Vizo

A Word about Airflow and Design:

The most common fan hard drive coolers are very thin, but still too big to stack two hard drives above each other as in order to pull in fresh air between drives you need to allow space between drives. One common construction problem of fan coolers is one in which the fan blades are exposed allowing for a stray cable to get snagged while the fan is spinning (good cable management is key). The Voyager from Vizo is designed with a grill like guard to prevent such snags from occuring and includes aluminum extrusion fins to assist with heat dissipation. Additionally the Voyager is designed to stand-off from your hard drive to provide better air flow across the hard drive and also to allow for greater suction by the fans. The improvements of this design places it as a much better purchase than the average hard drive cooler as the average cooler does not leave much of a gap which in the end produces a cushion of stale air against the hard drive circuit board. The cushion will be cooled by the thin layer of air the fan blades are trying their best to push against the hard drive, but with out proper exhaust, the fan blades turn into noise makers.

Below are a few photos of a Voyager and another hard drive fan cooler for comparison.

The Voyager sitting on a hard drive, note that it does not cover the entire width of the drive. The part of the drive that is not cover is still getting air passed over it by the part of the drive that is covered. This allows more area for the forced air to exhaust from the drive.

The side view shows how far the Voyager stands off from the hard drive. Note the additional height of the combined devices. This combined height will have to be a consideration for placement within your computer case.

This is a common fan cooler used for hard drives and has the same general principle as the Vizo Voyager. As you can see this design is a little lower profile, and has vents designed only in the sides of the drive, not the front and back. The design being much more air restrictive than the Voyager thus has much less airflow and as a result is less effective.