In the past few years, water cooling has become noticed for cooling computer components, especially the CPU, allowing for quieter operation and improved overclocking. Less commonly, other devices such as hard drives are also water cooled. Hitachi and NEC recently launched in Tokyo a new watercooling system for hard disk drives. The system, initially aimed at high-end audio-visual computers, will reportedly make its way to some of NEC's desktop computers in the near future.
Even though they are claiming the "world's first hard drive liquid cooling cold plate," drive plates and drive cooling mechanisms from companies such as Koolance, Danger Den and others have been in use for years.
Nevertheless, should PC enthusiasts be concerned enough about hard drive temperatures to buy this? Perhaps if they are looking for a completely fan-less setup. The liquid cooling technology by Hitachi and NEC will allegedly emit a noise level of just about 25 dB.