Hard drives are getting larger, faster and cheaper. Of course, with this increase in RPM speeds, there is also going to be an increase in the heat produced. Galaxy has created the GC815 Hard drive cooler, which addresses this exact problem. Cooler hard drive equals longer lifespan. Seems logical. So today, we’ve decided to test out this cooler and see how it performs.
Galaxy’s GC815 is basically an 80x80x15 mm fan inside of a copper housing.
Specifications :
• Voltage : 12v
• Current : 0.17a
• Air Flow : 25 CFM
• Noise : 27 dB/A
• Connector: 4 pin “Y” connectors
• Copper heatsink
• Fan dimensions 80x80x15
Installation was a simple affair. Take your existing hard drive out, attach the hard drive cooler with provided hardware (4 screws), plug in the power molex and put the hard drive back into your case. Doesn’t get much easier than that. This being said, it would have been nice if instructions had been included. It’s a pretty straightforward installation but instructions would help people who are new to the modding world and want to make sure they are doing things correctly. A nice added feature is the inclusion of a pass-through molex so that you don’t tie up one of your power supply lines when using the cooler. Also, the fan on this cooler is actually pretty quiet. When l powered up the computer after installing the cooler l had to check to make sure the fan was actually spinning.
It is important to note that this cooler hangs off the bottom of your hard drive. This means, of course, that it is going to take some extra space. If you are running 2 hard drives one on top of the other, this may cause some spacing issues. In this case, the test system was running an 80 Gig Maxtor 7200 rpm hard drive with lots of room to breathe, so space was not an issue.
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