In today’s review, I took a closer look at Cooler Master’s Oracle Air because I still had it stored on the shelf of good deeds waiting for redemption. Anyone who thinks a review of a massive external enclosure for NVMe SSDs would be boring has never really paid attention to the details. I currently have a lot of things on my mind and thought about what I could quickly bring you today as a Friday article parallel to various benchmarks, without slowing down my work too much. The fact that this turned out to be a bit more interesting than I had initially thought was of course a welcome benefit.
Important preface
This time, I also cross-read with colleagues beforehand to avoid an unintentional flop and wasted time. To test, or not? The conclusions all sounded very positive, so I did the test after all, thinking it would be quick. The case is consistently said to have a good cooling performance with low heating, which should actually be a reason to think about it. Because that’s not really possible for physical reasons. I’m deliberately not mentioning any names or media now, but I just couldn’t resist a few quotes. And I will also explain on the next pages why I was a bit annoyed, because the in itself “perfect case” doesn’t really cool. It also can’t cool everything on the SSD at all, at most indirectly. The proof will come in a moment.
– “… Good cooling performance of the case”
– “… There are no points of criticism for the case, for us it is actually perfect.”
I’m just going to put that out there, because it needs to be set straight. I am also in contact with Cooler Master, have transmitted my data and they will certainly offer a solution in a timely manner. Only it would not need any equipment. if you look at the imprints in the pads more closely. But anyway, I’ll get to that in a moment. The case itself is really good, with small limitations in the interface.
Cooler Master offers the Oracle Air SSD case starting at around 53 Euros street price. It is a spacious aluminum case with an integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C connection. According to Cooler Master, it cools SSDs with up to 15 watts of power consumption and allows mounting 2260, 2242, 2230 and 2280 SSDs. The case, by the way, is split in two: The SSD sits in a sealed inner enclosure made of a special aluminum alloy (material test coming soon), which is inserted into a rugged aluminum shell. The inner case also offers the option of attaching to hooks or straps.
Cooler Master justifies the use of so much material (115 grams with SSD) with the modern SSDs that can take up to 15 watts of power, especially those with PCIe Express 5.0. However, the Oracle Air only supports PCIe 4.0 and 3.0 internally, while the PCIe USB bridge chip JMS583 from JMicron only allows USB 3.2 Gen 2 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 with arg narrow 10 Gbps. In theory, this allows a maximum read and write speed of a bit over 1,000 MB/s, but in practice, it will probably be just under that under load.
The scope of delivery includes the actual case with USB controller in the form of two half-shells, the outer casing as well as two pads, which I will have to write about in a moment, and two not really stable silicone plugs as an attachment for the SSD. They are not great, but it works with a bit of fiddling. The closing mechanism with the outer cover for the inserted case is ingenious and holds tight – as long as you do not press on it. Then the part falls apart.
For the bureaucrats and detail lovers, quickly the data sheet, then it’s off to the material analysis.
Product Sheet - Oracle AIRCooler Master says aluminum, but what does the analysis say? Let’s take a scroll…
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