Vantec Vortex 2 HDD Cooler

We have recently taken a look at a few Vantec products that were both hard drive related. The first was the 701A cooler which Greg found to reliably lower his HDD temp by more than 10°C. The other product was the NexStar 3 enclosure that we awarded a perfect score.

There are many hard drive coolers on the market that do not do much more than just take up extra space in your computer. When I first seen this one, it reminded me a lot of the SilverStone FP53 that I reviewed last July. That turned out to be a great cooler, but the reason I loved it the most is that I could mount it in a 5 1/4″ drive bay.

Some coolers similar to this on the market act as enclosures also, such as the previous reviewed FP53 by SilverStone. This one however, allows your hard drive to have as much open air as possible. When installed, the entire top and bottom of your disk will not be covered. Though I make no sense right now, you will as soon as you check out these pictures!

Specifications
• Dimension: 210 x 148.5 x 42.5 mm
• Weight: 750 g
• Rated Voltage: 12 V
• Rated Current: 0.1 A
• Fan Speed: 0 ~ 3700 RPM
• Airflow: 16 ~ 30 CFM
• Noise Level: 28 ~ 38 dBA
• Fan MTBF: 50,000 hrs
• Bearing Type: Ball Bearing

The installation was extremely simple, just a matter of holding things into place while you grab a screwdriver. Instructions are included, but are not likely to be needed. You first need to piece the frame together, and then worry about your HDD. Once the frame is complete, you can lay your HDD within it and then screw it into place. This will make the product as a whole fairly heavy, which is a good thing. The HDD is very secure when installed, and even if you accidentally drop the contraption it would not likely even touch the HDD.

Once your HDD is installed, directly behind it will lie the crossflow blower. Instead of using a fan like so many others do, they chose to use this blower which I hope will prove more effective than a regular fan. One obvious benefit that the blower will have over a standard fan, is that it will cover more of the HDD, not just shoot a stream of air down the middle.

To power the cooler, they use a standard 4-Pin Molex connector. If you do not have a spare one free, then you will appreciate the spare connector that this will provide. Since the cooler will essentially be pulling air from outside the case in through the front panel, they have lined the inside of it with an air filter to prevent too much dust from getting inside your case. This is quite appreciated, and I’m glad to see that they actually considered it while so many others plainly overlook it. They even go as far as to include an extra filter to use as a replacement when the other one is old.

One major feature of this cooler is that you can control the speed of the crossflow blower. This is important if you wish to maintain a quite PC since HDD Water Cooling is not likely to happen for quite some time ;)

Overall, this is a great looking cooler and I can’t wait to test it out.