It is not surprising that a hardware device, mostly if it has moving parts, produces heat. All recent computers contain a lot of heat producing components, and there are many ways to get rid of this heat.

Most efficient solutions are active, i.e. contain fans to blow fresh air on warm components and possibly there are other fans to remove the hot air from the case. The drawback of active solutions is that can be very noisy.

Passive heat dissipation is another solution and an interesting HDD cooler has been reviewed at overclockers online: the Ultra Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler with Heatpipes. Its main features are the following:

• Passive Thermal solution for Hard Drives
• High performance sintered powder heatpipe dissipates heat efficiently
• Rubber dampers reduce HDD noise and vibration
• Top heatsink fins provide an outstanding cooling surface area
• Fan-less operation

Two annoying issues were found by the reviewer. The damper screws are a different size than the standard screws for hard drives, so some hole openings may be too small for the included screws. Moreover, since the damper posts are slightly different than the standard rails there can be difficulties to install the cooler in some tool less cases.

Detailed results about the cooling performance can be read in the complete review.