Cooler Master Oracle Air: Based on design elegance

In the context of external SSD enclosures, Cooler Master has come up with a remarkable concept that combines “tool-less” assembly with high mechanical durability. And yet, an efficient cooler is also used, and looking at the Oracle Air case, one can probably conclude that it has a presentable appearance as well. But let everyone evaluate this individually. Let’s move on to the details, which also include measurable results.

Evaluation

Although Cooler Master lists read and write speeds up to 1054 MB/s, we measured as high as 1095 MB/s. Your mileage may vary. It is possible or even likely that the lower values in the CM parameters refer to the “worst case scenario”. In the sense that you won’t get below these speeds with another SSD. That is, as far as the limit of maximum capabilities is concerned. You naturally won’t get anywhere near those when moving small files.

In speed tests, the Oracle Air enclosure was not out of line with the average of other enclosures tested to date that also support USB 3.2 gen. 2. But for example achieved power consumption during sequential write is, at a comparable speed to the Axagon EEM2-GTR , , 8 % lower. However, due to the fact that the differences are in the order of hundreds of mW, this result should be taken rather as a curiosity. In practice, it does not make much difference. Compared to the aforementioned Axagon case, idle power consumption is also 15% lower, so it’s likely that SSD power consumption will be the same, and this difference arises elsewhere (e.g. at the PCIe-USB controller level).

The CM Oracle Air does well with SSD cooling. There were no speed fluctuations due to load length and the design of the articulated heatsink indicates that there could be a relatively large margin. And sometimes, typically in environments with higher ambient air temperature, that comes in handy.

Unlike the Asus TUF Gaming A1 enclosure, this (Oracle Air) one has no degree of water or dust protection, and Cooler Master doesn’t even advertise extra durability with this one, but the praise for the higher mechanical durability is well-deserved with this design. Those who are unlucky enough to have the safety mechanism come loose in an accidental fall will probably disagree with this statement, but as long as you’re not that unlucky, you are most likely to be satisfied in this regard. The tool-less assembly method is also admirable given the high robustness of the design. You unlock the latch, split the core in two, mount the SSD, and reinstall it back to its original state by sliding it into the cage. Clever, practical, worthy of commendation.

However, the question is how much this enclosure costs, or will cost in the future. When it was released, it had a suggested retail price of 59 EUR, but now it is also available in some stores for 20 EUR. Whether this is a permanent discount or just a temporary promotion is hard to say, so we prefer to assume the price of 32 EUR from larger stores.

Since we found virtually no shortcomings in the Cooler Master Oracle Air enclosure and, on the contrary, we can highlight the above-standard workmanship, we conclude the evaluation with the editorial award “Top-notch“.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

Wordpress Table Plugin