For the Pimp that is obsessed with cooling, no piece of computer hardware would be overlooked if the mere possibility of lowering its temperature by 1C existed. Because of this, the consumer can easily order online a slot fan, active RAM cooling, and even a hard drive cooler. While IÂ’m not in that class, I came across a very attractive piece of eye candy that I could not pass up. IÂ’m talking about the SST-FP53 hard drive cooler from Silverstone.

Since it is a Taiwanese company, it was a little difficult to track down a retailer that sold accessory products for Silverstone here in the United States. However, I did find one online retailer for the cost of $29.99 plus shipping at Xoxide.com.

Packaging

Since this is really a delicate piece of hardware, the packaging is a little bit on the skimpy side. It arrived in a sturdy cardboard box literally a smidge larger than the product itself, which was wrapped in a plastic bag. Inside the actual product was a small ziplock bag containing hard drive screws and four case mounting screws.

I had ordered two of these as well as a new X-Connect PSU, so they all came packed in a large UPS box, complete with packing popcorn. I suppose that if you were to order this product individually, it would still arrive in the same manner from the same vendor I ordered from. If you were to order this from a vendor that shipped the box by itself, I believe that it would still arrive in good shape as the product is composed of very sturdy aluminum.

Specifications

Here is the list taken directly from the vendorÂ’s web siteÂ…

Material:
Aluminum front panel, aluminum body

Color:
Black or Silver (I ordered two of the black)

Application:
5 ¼” drive bay

Compatibility:
3.5” hard drive

Cooling system:
Dual-oval intake mesh grill
Aluminum body with thermal pad
Internal 40mm fan, 5000rpm, 25.6dBA

Net weight:
560g

Dimension:
148mm (W) x 42mm (H) x 193mm (D)

General Observations

The one thing that I noticed immediately when I took it out of the plastic was that it was very cold to the touch. Having arrived on an 80F day and sat inside my 74F cooled house for over five hours (hey, I had an X-Connect to play with first), I expected it to feel at room temperature. Perhaps it was just the aluminum or my active imagination, it felt that it already knew what to do and was up for the task.


No one can deny the attractiveness of this piece of eye candy in your front panel. The tear-drop design of the sturdy mesh grill draws the attention of your eye immediately when looking at the front panel of your computer without giving away the hint that it is a hard drive cooler. Additionally, the front face plate is also slightly curved outward and has a vertical “cut mark” in the middle that would match up nicely with other Silverstone bay accessories.

Once disassembled, youÂ’ll see that the hard drive will sit on top of four blue plastic grommets. They appear to be hard until you touch one with your fingers. While pliable, it still appears to remain strong enough not to tear out when installing the hard drive. For comparison, remember back in grade school when you painted your hands with the rubber cement and then rolled it up into a ball to throw at the girls? Same texture and feeling.


The three-bladed 40mm fan is powered by a molex with enough reach to the back of the product. With some wonderful foresight, the makers of this product built it with a 4-pin pass through molex, eliminating the need to do some amateur wiring yourself. Definite props to Silverstone on this point alone.

Silverstone also includes an instruction sheet that can be very helpful to the simple-minded among us…with one exception. They printed the inventory list on the bottom of the sheet to include “one FP-52, four Screws#6-32x8mm, four Screw M3x6, and four washers”. This was a minor irritation in that it is nearly impossible to distinguish an 8mm screw from a 6mm screw so it was more of a “let’s hope I got the right one”. If it was too small to screw into the hard drive, it was for the mounting of the product inside the case.

One minor bonus was found inside the top cover of the hard drive cooler. Silverstone also included a large thermal pad to aid in the heat transfer to the aluminum case. Not required, but thoughtful nonetheless.

Installation

To properly mount the hard drive, you had to remove the cover from the base by removing four screws (be sure to keep these separate). Mounting the hard drive can be time consuming as you cannot simply drop the screw into the holes with your fingers. You have to go through an access hole in the base to reach the ledge in which the hard drive will be resting upon. In true retro fashion, I balanced the screw on top of a Phillips screwdriver and while holding the base and the hard drive over my head, I inserted the screw to attach the hard drive. Installing one FP53 will make you slightly light-headed. Installing two will make you dizzy.

Once you have the hard drive mounted in the proper direction, it is time to re-attach the cover to the base. Be sure that before you do, you have the fan molex out the back or youÂ’ll find yourself taking the hard drive cooler back apart.

After you put it all back together, it is simply a matter of mounting the hard drive cooler into a spare 5 ¼” bay. No problems mounting the hard drive cooler, nor in connecting the IDE and power cables as the hard drive sat flush with the rear of the hard drive cooler. Luckily, there is spare room on the side of the cooler to hide the excess wiring from the 4-pin pass through molex.

Testing

For the purpose of this test, I used a Seagate 80G 7200RPM IDE hard drive with an 8MB cache. Using a program called HDD Thermometer, I first tested the drive by mounting it in the 3.5” bay in my Silverstone TJ-01 case. After about one hour of use, I checked the temperature and it was a solid 32C.* After installing the hard drive into the Silverstone FP53 hard drive cooler and letting it run for an hour, the temperature dropped a whole 4 degrees to run at a steady 28C and at times of extended idle, 27C.

I added the asterisk in the previous paragraph as a note that when I ran the test with the drive mounted normally in my tower, I neglected to take into account that the 3.5” hard drive bay sits directly behind two 60mm intake fans. Judging from the positioning of these fans, it appears that the fans only caught the top half of the hard drive and not the bottom half during the data gathering phase. With the FP53 however, the drive sits snuggly on top of four soft plastic grommets mounted on a ledge forcing the bulk of the airflow to go underneath the hard drive.

Conclusion


For the Pimp obsessed with temperatures or for the underpaid working masses conscious about making their hard drive last a couple of years, this $29.99 product is worth investing in (not to mention the bling-bling looks, too). Sleek, stylish, and ultra-modern, the FP53 will deliver results guaranteed to live up to the quality products designed by Silverstone. Just make sure that you are sitting down when having to mount the hard drive to the base or youÂ’ll stand the chance of getting dizzy from raising and lowering it to attach the screws.

The Good

Sleek, stylish, and ultra-modern designed front bezel
Catches the eye with the tear-drop mesh
Reduces hard drive temps and hard drive noise
Quiet

The Bad

Mounting the hard drive to the base can be time consuming
Very difficult to determine which screws were which
Can take a valuable spot if you have only a couple of 5 ¼” bays

Overall rating:

A strong 9 Pimphats out of a possible 10.

Nice review Rob, they do look pretty swank.
I would be interested to know more about that "conditional' temp that you got and how much higher the temp would have been without getting caught by the one fan.

I've tried to contact their company before on this issue; however, their support e-mail address is nothing more than an automated response directing you to another e-mail address. I've checked again today and they've updated it to include a North American e-mail address to which I shot off a quick e-mail. I'll let you know the results.

I have checked around and found some other reviews on this product. Most of these reviews show an average 5C drop in internal sensor temperature, which is pretty good. I'd pull the hard drive to find out, but someone's got company coming this week he needs to get ready for.

Rob