Introduction, specifications and installation

A brand new hard disk cooler arrived in our testing labs a while ago, thanks to Joost at the Dutch office for sending us the Cool Drive 6 by Coolermaster.



As you can deduct for its name, it is intended to cool down your hard drive but that's not everything this device is capable of. It can monitor and controls up to 3 fans, inform you about temperatures reported by the 4 included flat thermal probes and alerts you when temperatures exceed user set limits and gives you all kind of data about up to 15 drives!

What's in the box? Off course the Cool Drive unit itself and furthermore you'll find a manual, a driver/software installation CD, two different USB cables, a little bag with some screws and two self adhesive thermal pads.



The front panel is nicely finished in a silver color, and the used font and symbols on the controls are clear and great looking.




The Cool Drive 6 is constructed entirely out of aluminum; this cuts down on weight and production costs and offers more then adequate heat dissipation. The part where the HDD is mounted is equipped with fins to ensure an optimal heat transfer. Before mounting the HDD you have to apply one or two thermal pads (according to the type of drive) to the IC board so a perfect contact between the drive and housing is made. Extra rubber mounting rings ensure that vibration from the drive is not translated into noise.





With your drive sitting inside everything is done and you just slide the Cool Drive into an empty 5” 1/2 bay, connect power cable, install the included software and attach the USB cable. There are two types of cables in the box, one to connect directly to your motherboard and one to be used with an empty USB slot.









I’ve read a remark about possible mounting issues into a case with mounting rails (like to small or not strong enough), but since the device is even longer than a CD device and is the construction is really sturdy, I don't see how any problems could occur.