Date: April 20th, 2002
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Kingwin Inc.

Kingwin Inc. Profile

Kingwin was founded in 1992 as a manufacturer specialized in designing and manufacturing CPU Coolers and Mobile racks, also with goals to provide our customers with the best thermal cooling and storage solutions. Kingwin's factories are located in China and Taiwan. The first U.S.A. office was established in Walnut, CA in 1994 and in 1997 Kingwin has further expanded its branch and established another office in New Jersey for better service to more customers through out the US. We have been producing top quality thermal solutions and storage products both OEM and ODM to support our clients from the worldwide market. Backed by in-depth experiences from market demand and customer responses, we continue to develop new products with innovative ideas to keep up with the pace in the fast changing market. Also, the good relations and services that we provide for our customers is giving us more opportunity to understand, communicate and assist with our clients the best way we can. Our strong support from R&D department is committed to offer the most enhance and cutting edge thermal and storage solution for both industrial and personal computers.

Product Introduction

How many times do you have a file that you would like to share with someone. But, unfortunately, it is too big to fit on the standard 80min/700mb CD-R's of today and a far cry from even trying to fit on a 3.5" 1.44mg floppy. For pure convenience, swapping hard drives is the best way to go. Kingwin Inc. was kind enough to provide us with a a sample of their KF-23-IPF Triple fan cooled hard drive rack and a sample of their KF-101-IPF Double fan cooled model which incorporates their patented bottom fan cooled design to help in your file transfer dilemma.

KF-23-IPF Triple Fan-Cooled Mobile Hard Drive Rack

Upon first inspection, I was impressed with the quality of construction. The unit was very rigid and had no flaws whatsoever.

To aid in the installation (which is really simple), Kingwin includes a manual for you hardware rookies.

Product Specifications:

-Fits Standard 5.25" Drive Bay
-Easy Transport And Secure Valuable Data
-For Standard 1" or 1.6" Height, 3.5" H.D.D.
-Auto push-pull handle design
-Dust & wear resistant auto shutter
-Triple Fans Ball Bearing
-All Aluminum-Alloy frame and tray ensure fastest cooling effects
-LED indicate the power & working state of H.D.D.
-Supports all brands of 3.5" of IDE ATA33/66/100 H.D.D.
-Supports ATA MO, ZIP, LS120, Tape Drive, and Flash Reader
-Compatible With All Type Of PC Cases


Suitable Hard Disk Type: 1.0" or 1.6" Height, 3.5" H.D.D.
Interface: Ultra ATA 100/133 IDE
Fan: 1 x Rear fan 40 x 40 10 mm ball bearing
2 x Front fan 40 x 40 x 10 mm ball bearing
Keylock: Yes
LED Display: Yes
Connector: Centronic 50 pin (IDE)
Frame Material: Aluminum Alloy
Tray Material: Aluminum Alloy
Dimension: 8.75" x 5.75" x 1.63" (L x W x H)
Weights: 2.5 lb / piece

The unit consists of two separate parts, the rack frame that is installed in your computer, and the tray which is where the harddrive is installed.

On the back of the tray is the main connector which carries both the power and the actual data signal to and from the harddrive.

Here is a close-up of where that actual connector plugs into when inserted into the rack frame.

Now the tray has a sliding removable top which exposes the harddrive enclosure and all the connectors and the two front intake cooling fans.

Here is a pic of the actual power and IDE connectors within the tray.

And the two front intake fans. Now here is the engineering flaw. We have two front intakes in the tray. Now where is the warm air supposed to be exhausted??? The tray is totally enclosed and the only exhaust fan contained within this product is attached to the rack frame. Hmmmmm.., Something is not right here. Here is a couple of pics of the exhaust fan and the measured temperatures while using the rack.

Temperature:

Now you can see the problem, what is this small fan going to be exhausting,,,,,nothing!! Now without any proper exhaust for the tray, cooling is going to be minimal seeing that the air coming into and interacting with the harddrive is just going to circulate and warm up and essentially do nothing. Kingwin needs to bring this product back to the drawing board and do a little rethinking. Don't get me wrong, it will still serve it's purpose well by being an excellent and well-built mobile harddrive rack, but if you are buying it for the optional cooling, you're wasting your money.