[nickolai]

I was under the impression that this used a similar principle to the one that keeps hard drive heads in place. So some reasonable amount of vibration should not be an issue. On the other hand, assuming a reliability similiar to hard drives, failures will happen. and in worst case, will send a weighty heatsink spinning at 2krpm flying inside your computer case. Given how collision-unfriendly that baby looks, its not something i would want to happen inside my desktop box.

[excuse-me]

Hard drive bearings are big and expensive!

But the heads are mostly kept above the surface by aerodynamic effects - effectively they are held in a thin air film which stops them touching the platter.

[hollerith]

This new heat sink / fan is like the heads in the hard drive: it floats on a thin film of air. Consequently, it does not need any conventional bearings. The video describes it as "using an air bearing".

[excuse-me]

It isn't an air-bearing by any normal use of the term.

It still needs a radial bearing to attach it to the motor - especially if you aren't mounting this perfectly flat and level. It can use an air cushion effect to reduce the planarity demands of the bearing to keep the heat transfer surfaces parallel - but this is very different to 'floating' a 10mg sprung drive head

[Ralith]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4157104