New low-vibration fans from Aerco reduce risk of hard drive crashes

Board fans usually have to run at high speed to provide sufficient cooling for densely packed enclosures and the resultant increase in vibration can prove problematic for sensitive equipment such as hard drives. These new Delta fans vibrate up to 50% less than traditional fans in the critical speed areas because standard fans are usually only centrally balanced whereas these new Delta fans have the propellers balanced on both the outer and inner edges, similar to a car wheel.

The Delta FFB series offers a standard fan in a frame size of 40 x 40 x 28mm that is ideal for many applications and for particularly hot processors Delta has designed the GFB series. The high performance GFB series has two 40 x 40mm fans, one 48mm and the other 56mm thick, placed in series. Both units are separated by a stator and, unlike with most series mounted fans, the impellers run in opposite directions and so the stator smoothes the swirling air coming out of the first fan and guides it precisely into the second, rather like a spoiler on a racing car: This technique improves the performance against system pressure resulting in more airflow and greater efficiency.

The speed of both impellers can be controlled automatically to produce optimised cooling while reducing both vibration and background noise and it is also possible to disable one of the impellers if required.