Pricing and Conclusion
Pricing
The ICYRaid is a decent price given its hardware RAID features and performance. The ICYCube's pricing seems high given its limited feature set (only JBOD), especially since it falls ~$75 short of a 4-Bay 3rd generation Drobo, which runs circles around it on features. We did note some negative Amazon reviews on the ICYCube, but we did not experience the same behavior on our sample.
Conclusion
I was impressed with the build quality of these two drive enclosures. They are reasonably durable and should have no issue safely containing drives. Their solid anodized aluminum shells are not bad to look at, either. The ICYRaid has simple hardware RAID features easily selected by a rear panel switch, making configuration a no brainer. The ICYCube only operates as a JBOD unit, meaning those desiring RAID are going to have to rely on software-RAID features of their OS (as well as the corresponding performance hit when using a software RAID through a single external interface link).
Awards
ICYRaid MB662U3-2S:
A nice, simple two bay RAID enclosure that is quiet and easy to configure.
ICYCube MB561U3S-4S:
Good build quality, but limited on features for such an expensive device.
UASP is interesting. How do
UASP is interesting. How do they increase throughput? By lowering overhead? 5 Gb/s translates to 625 MB/s. Even with the fastest 2.5″ drive in the world, it managed to cap at 440 MB/s at a not practical high Q depth.
I remember PCIe Gen 1 and 2 had a 20% overhead due to poor encoding. They decreased the overhead to roughly 1.5% with better encoding algorithms. That, of course, increases power consumption.
Can’t they do something similar to that with USB? I understand it has to jump through more hoops to get to the processor since it’s not a direct bridge like PCIe 3.0 (All Intel CPUs, some AMD CPUS) is but surely they can do better than that.
Same story with SATA 3. 750 MB/s theoretical throughput but in practice it hardly ever goes over ~550 MB/s. That’s 35% overhead.
Future SoCs from Intel will integrate PCH into the die, eliminating the need for DMI. Maybe then we’ll see more efficient data transfer rates.
I looked at these today,
I looked at these today, before I knew you had done a review Allyn,
Bit too pricy for me though,so I poped these into my whish list instead
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JX7XTOK/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005OFID5A/
Sorry it’s UK, and one is unavailable, but it’s around half the price of the MB662U3-2S
Have you had any experience of ORICO?
EDIT:
Actually reading around, they seem a little low quality, however I just managed to snag “ORICO 6619US3” a single docking station for £6.01 inc del from amazon, so will try that out.