A “cool” mobile rack – Joe
SUMMARY: Simple, effective, removable SATA mobile hard drive rack.
The good guys at Kingwin sent us a sample of their Kingwin Serial SATA HDD Mobile Rack KF-91 to check out.
Key Features:
- For standard 5.25″ drive bays
- Ball bearing 40 mm fan
- For standard 1″ height, 3.5″ SATA hard drives
- Push-pull handle design
- Dust shutter
- Direct SATA to SATA bridge connection for fastest performance
- LED indicators for power & fan status
- Shock absorber system
- Aluminum material and ABS plastic
- Metal power keylock
The hard drive pulls out by lifting the handle and pulling the drive carrier out of its tray:
The rear of the tray shows the 40 mm cooling fan – it pulls cooling air through the carrier’s front and over the drive:
Looking at the back inside
shows the connector to the hard drive. This side shot
shows the lock assembly – the drive will not run until it’s locked into place; there are two keys shipped with the drive. The carrier is simplicity personified:
No back – basically a three sided box. There are rubber strips so that the bottom for “shock mounting”. Mounting is a snap – slip the drive in the carrier (a snug fit), screw it in place
and insert the carrier into the tray:
The back of the SATA drive mounts with the tray. Power the tray with a standard hard drive plug, attach the SATA cable and you’re set to go.
I tested the KF-91 to see how well the fan cooled the drive. I placed a thermocouple on top of the drive’s spindle to measure its temp, and measured ambient temps as well. The results:
| Condition |
HD Temp
|
Ambient Temp
|
Delta
|
| Inside KF-91 |
28.6ºC
|
16.4ºC
|
12.2ºC
|
| Bare Drive |
33.0ºC
|
16.8ºC
|
16.2ºC
|
The fan does a nice job, dropping drive temps by 4ºC. Cool air is drawn from the front of the drive and exhausted through the back, into the case.
Kingwin’s Serial Mobile Rack KF-91 is a handy unit for those looking for SATA drive mobility. I also can see using a product such as this as a security device – lock the drive up when not needed – or a handy way to isolate the internet from a critical work drive (two carriers and one sleeve – total physical separation).
Thanks again to Kingwin for sending this our way.
Related posts:
- Kingwin AT100 Mobile Rack KF-101
- Kingwin Mobile Hard Drive Rack KF32
- Hard Drive Mobile Rack
- Kingwin KF-1000 Internal SATA II Hot-Swap Rack
- Kingwin 2.5″ Mobile Data Dock
Tags: Systems & Components
