To have an overall investigation of cold storage characteristics to help to promote the application, a novel small scale of gas hydrate cold storage apparatus was designed. The amount of cold energy, growth rate, Hydrate Packed Factor (HPF) and overall heat transfer coefficient during the cold storage process were calculated and analyzed under different heat exchangers, sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDS) concentrations, hydration enhancement ways, inlet coolant temperatures and flow rates, etc. Results show that the cold storage performance could be improved greatly by adding a heat exchanger with vertical metal fins; SDS with concentration of 0.04 wt.% could help to improve the cold storage performance effectively. In addition, decreasing of the coolant temperature or increasing of the coolant flow rate could also make the amount of cold storage increased; it was found that mechanical blending for 5 min was the better hydration enhancement way than others, which presents the perspective for practical application. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.