Vizo Voyager Hard Drive Cooler

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

Testing:

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The Voyager was put through a few staged tests but due to the fact that in order to poll the temperature of a hard drive would consist of removing the voyager from a testing hard drive during which precious minutes the drive is would be cooling off a valid poll was pretty hard to accomplish. The benchmark was done with a SATA drive sitting outside a computer case and run with an OS and BATTLEFIELD 2 installed on it. Temperatures were taken from the hard drive as is during game play and as best as possible with the Voyager installed. Additional testing was done with limiting the airflow into the Voyager to simulate a case where another device such as another HD is located in the second 3.5 drive bay.

Hard drive: Western Digital 120Gig

Temperature during Gameplay: 97F

Voyager installed – Temperature during Game play average 86F to 89F.

Voyager installed - Several strips of tape was applied to the grill side of the Voyager to simulate less air being able to be pulled into and blown on a HD. – Temperature during game play average 94F ~ 96F.

The benchmark showed some considerable differences between the Voyager being installed on a drive and without a cooling device. Further more with the airflow restricted into the Voyager further proved that if the Voyager didn’t have enough space to pull fresh air through it would be as if you didn’t have a HD cooler installed at all. So before you go and purchase any type of cooler, be sure you have room in your case for one or more.

Conclusion:

The Voyager by Vizo is one of the nicest looking coolers we have seen and what TechwareLabs would consider a product well thought out and in the end if installed correctly (space to allow air into the Voyager) does work effectively. Now keeping your hard drive few degrees cooler may or may not make the drive last considerably more years, but it wouldn’t hurt to add it and will add to overall airflow in your computer which will aid in longevity. If your looking to add something to your system that will help extend the life of you hard drive this cheap device is well worth considering. Ultimately the Voyager is in the right price range and is definitely cheaper and safer then a water block, and is designed a notch above the rest.