Features:
As SilenX is known for their ability to make some of, if not, the best PC silencing solutions commercially available, the Luxurae is advertised to follow well in that trend. It's main function is to lower the noise of the hard drive from 3 to 8dBA. This is accomplished by essentially "sandwiching" the hard drive tightly between two layers of foam to absorb any vibrations and motor noise. Since sandwiching a hard drive in foam isn't without the added heat, there are also two long aluminum heat sinks which go all the way down each side of the hard drive. These are attached by thermal tape as well as screws to make sure there as little to no vibration between the drive and the heat sinks.

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Installation:
Installation is relatively easy overall, but still takes some time. The first step is to attach the two long heat sinks to either side of the hard drive. This is done by first sticking a strip of the included thermal tape onto the heat sinks between the two screw holes, then sticking each heat sink on either side of the hard drive and screwing them down firmly. Second, place the layer of larger foam on the bottom section of the enclosure and the thinner strip down the center at the top. Then set the drive in the middle of the bottom piece of foam and set the top section on and line up the screw holes at the side and screw the case firmly together. The last step is to mount the box into your case's 5 1/4" drive bay, or any other place in your computer case. In my case I personally preferred to set the box on the bottom of my case in front of the intake fan. This is also the lowest point and the coolest point in my case. Keep in mind though that my testing was performed WITHOUT the intake fan blowing on the Luxurae to give an accurate comparison to using the hard drive with and without the cooler.

Testing:
To test the Luxurae I recorded both the idle and load temperatures of the hard drive. Those temperatures were then compared to running the hard drive with no cooling and also with two other cooling/silencing solutions.

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As you can see, the Luxurae shows it's cooling abilities even when the drive is idle, where it is able to cool slightly better than just the bare hard drive exposed in the computer case. However, once the drive gets up to load there is a notable temperature increase. When reading most hard drive's threshold this increase is nothing dangerous at all, and you shouldn't really be worried about it if you're going for silence.
Now let's talk about the actual silencing of the Luxurae. There was a very noticeable noise decrease when the drive was running in the Luxurae as opposed to just the drive mounted in my computer case. Being as I don't have the expensive equipment required to measure the actual dBA drop, I can only tell you that there was definitely a very noticeable drop in the noise level of the hard drive.
Conclusion:
When it comes to building an ultra-silent computer, extra heat on some components is a given, especially when they are components like hard drives which run hot by nature and are hard to silence in the first place. SilenX has done an excellent job of providing a silencing solution for hard drives,. It does it's job of dropping the noise emitted by the hard drive, and it does it very well.
Pros:
Silences hard drive
Easy access to hard drive connections even when installed
Price is reasonable
Support up to 15K RPM drives
Cons:
Temperature increase may not be liked by some people
Rating: 9/10

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A big thanks goes out to the wonderful people at SilenX who provided the Luxurae for review! Check them as well as their many great products out at www.silenx.com!
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