News Frore Airjet SSD cooling demo — actively cooled drive offers double the sustained performance

[Admin]

External SSDs to get extreme performance thanks to Frore's AirJet Mini Slim, the company's demonstration at Computex reveals.

Frore Airjet SSD cooling demo — actively cooled drive offers double the sustained performance : Read more

 

[Notton]

If these are reasonably priced, I might grab one of these, tear it apart, and then slap the airjet onto the CPU of my mini-PC.

 

[TechLurker]

Would be neat if these became standard and integrated into SSDs, HDDs, and maybe even parts of the motherboard, where the flexible design of solid-state fans can allow for a hybrid heatsink-cooler over the VRMs and ICs, as well as within the shrouds that cover the NVMe drives and chipset.

 

[bit_user]

Demo seems pretty shady to me. I'd bet the Frore Airjets were mounted with a better thermal coupling than whatever the SSD had vs. the standard enclosure.

To make it a proper apples-to-apples comparison, they should've simply replaced the top plate of the enclosure with one containing their Airjets, but made no other changes in how the drives were mounted or coupled to the top plate. Based on the article, it's not clear if that's what they did, but we should assume it's not.

 

[thestryker]

My question would be if it's possible to modify an Orico enclosure effectively what's the cost of these units on a smaller manufacturing scale that we're not going to see just an enclosure sold with them.

I really like the concept of these and would like to see them hit more minipcs, and potentially in a better configuration than just two Airjet minis. Now that they're selling the packaged version of them perhaps we'll see more products utilizing them. I'd be curious if the high velocity exhaust could be used for some airflow across other components or if it needs to be completely unobstructed.

Demo seems pretty shady to me. I'd bet the Frore Airjets were mounted with a better thermal coupling than whatever the SSD had vs. the standard enclosure.

To make it a proper apples-to-apples comparison, they should've simply replaced the top plate of the enclosure with one containing their Airjets, but made no other changes in how the drives were mounted or coupled to the top plate. Based on the article, it's not clear if that's what they did, but we should assume it's not.

This makes it seem that they were effectively transferring heat to the enclosure in both circumstances:

With only passive cooling, the regular drive got to 62°C and the enclosure became extremely hot. However, in the modified enclosure with two AirJet Minis the drive temperature was only 42°C and the chassis became warm, but not hot.

That being said it doesn't look like a thermal pad was used under the copper (can't tell if it's a pipe or just a strip) linking the Airjets together which would be your typical TIM for M.2 enclosures.

 

[USAFRet]

If these are reasonably priced, I might grab one of these, tear it apart, and then slap the airjet onto the CPU of my mini-PC.

"Given the advantages of Frore's AirJets, an avid DIY reader might ask whether it will be possible to get an AirJet cooler in retail and then install it on any SSD with your own hands. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen for now as the company focuses on selling its AirJet solid-state cooling systems to large manufacturers."

 

[Notton]

"Given the advantages of Frore's AirJets, an avid DIY reader might ask whether it will be possible to get an AirJet cooler in retail and then install it on any SSD with your own hands. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen for now as the company focuses on selling its AirJet solid-state cooling systems to large manufacturers."

But it's demonstrated on an Orico? They are a large manufacturer of SSD accessories, and stuff. Do they subcontract for some larger maker?
If Orico sells the enclosure, I expect it to show up on amazon, not some distributor.

and if they do, I will scavenge the Airjet from the enclosure. Kind of like shucking HDDs from externals.

 

[USAFRet]

But it's demonstrated on an Orico? They are a large manufacturer of SSD accessories, and stuff. Do they subcontract for some larger maker?
If Orico sells the enclosure, I expect it to show up on amazon, not some distributor.

and if they do, I will scavenge the Airjet from the enclosure. Kind of like shucking HDDs from externals.

There ya go.

Let us know what happens.

 

[bit_user]

But it's demonstrated on an Orico? They are a large manufacturer of SSD accessories, and stuff. Do they subcontract for some larger maker?
If Orico sells the enclosure, I expect it to show up on amazon, not some distributor.

and if they do, I will scavenge the Airjet from the enclosure. Kind of like shucking HDDs from externals.

I'm not convinced this was a real product demo, but I might be mistaken. I assumed it was just a technology demo by Frore, and rereading the article still leaves me unconvinced either way. There's a suggestion this was a real product demo, but I don't know if the author is merely assuming that, or whether they've said as much.

 

[Notton]

There ya go.

Let us know what happens.

Sure!

I'm not convinced this was a real product demo, but I might be mistaken. I assumed it was just a technology demo by Frore, and rereading the article still leaves me unconvinced either way. There's a suggestion this was a real product demo, but I don't know if the author is merely assuming that, or whether they've said as much.

I hope it's real because an SSD enclosure is relatively inexpensive and easy to acquire.

 

[bit_user]

I hope it's real because an SSD enclosure is relatively inexpensive and easy to acquire.

Probably not if it has two Airjet Mini's integrated into it. I think they were saying a $500 mini-PC would have a single one integrated into it:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/airjet-c...rst-to-500-eight-core-mini-pc-later-this-year
​

According to this, you also only get 5.25 W of cooling per Airjet Mini:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ssd-active-cooling-tech-keeps-getting-better
​

That's enough for the lower-powered Alder Lake N SoCs, but scaling up to anything more probably requires some heat pipes.

When I stuck a big copper heatsink on a N97, it could passively sustain 6 W of dissipation on an open bench.

 

[thestryker]

Probably not if it has two Airjet Mini's integrated into it. I think they were saying a $500 mini-PC would have a single one integrated into it:

​

https://www.pcmag.com/news/airjet-c...rst-to-500-eight-core-mini-pc-later-this-year​

It launched with a $600 MSRP and has two Airjets, but I think it is hard TDP limited to 7W sustained:
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/zbox-pico-pi430aj-airjet-windows

It certainly wasn't designed to maximize performance of the N300, but rather make use of a really small case. Doesn't strike me as an optimal way to use these unless they have problems when completely saturated.

 

[Notton]

Probably not if it has two Airjet Mini's integrated into it. I think they were saying a $500 mini-PC would have a single one integrated into it:

​

https://www.pcmag.com/news/airjet-c...rst-to-500-eight-core-mini-pc-later-this-year​

​

According to this, you also only get 5.25 W of cooling per Airjet Mini:

​

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ssd-active-cooling-tech-keeps-getting-better​

​

That's enough for the lower-powered Alder Lake N SoCs, but scaling up to anything more probably requires some heat pipes.

When I stuck a big copper heatsink on a N97, it could passively sustain 6 W of dissipation on an open bench.

The zotac was reviewed, and it seems like 2 Airjets is enough for an N300
https://www.techradar.com/pro/zotac-zbox-pico-pi430aj-with-airjet-review

2x5W of cooling, but the heat coming off of it is closer to the CPU temp, compared to traditional heatsinks which only dump "warm" air

 

[bit_user]

2x5W of cooling, but the heat coming off of it is closer to the CPU temp, compared to traditional heatsinks which only dump "warm" air

5.75 W of cooling is specified at 85 C, which is almost how hot these CPUs run!

BTW, the N300's recommended PL2 is a whopping 25 W, although OEMs can configure a lower value.

Introduction - 001 - ID:759603 | Intel® Processor and Intel® Core™ i3 N-Series

From experience, I can say that if you crank up the iGPU, it can take a big bite out of the CPU cores' power budget.