ICYBento MB559U3S-1S Slim USB 3.0 & eSATA External HDD Enclosure
The housing is nicely built, with an aluminum 'taco' and plastic center band.
At the rear we find power, switch, USB 3.0, eSATA, Kensington lock port, and a mystery button.
The mystery button is connected to the mystery tabs along the side edge. Pressing it results in the following:
Pop out feet! It's kind of a gimmick, but also kind of a cool idea. The feet would catch on stuff while you travel, and it's nice to be able to extend them and then stand the unit vertically on a desk at your destination. I've seen plenty of other 3.5" enclosures come with clumsy plastic brackets for this purpose. ICY DOCK's solution is much more elegant.
The feet are not very wide but they do the job.
While the specs listed on our box stated '3TB' as the max capacity, so we naturally installed a 6TB WD Red straight away. It was recognized and worked just fine. The tray may look familiar to those who have seen the 4-bay unit (to be reviewed shortly). We then swapped over to a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB and connected via USB 3.0 to see what sort of throughputs it was capable of:
No problem with speeds here. This unit should not hold back any installed 3.5" HDD. We also confirmed that UASP was enabled for this dock, meaning queued commands are passed across the USB 3.0 interface and result in higher multithreaded performance (multiple apps accessing the HDD simultaneously).
The power indicator lights white and is diffused, not direct. Drive activity causes an inverted effect on the light, meaning it is off during activity and on during idle periods.
ToughArmor MB996SP-6SB is on
ToughArmor MB996SP-6SB is on sale $83.64 (same link in the article) and Prime shipping!!
Just bought one!
Thanks Allyn!
I do have the 4 slot version
I do have the 4 slot version of the tough armor. It came with dual 40mm fans and I tell ya, those fans were the loudest thing in my whole system.
I see that the MB996SP-6SB come with a single 40mm fan. Is it still loud?
It can be switched off, and
It can be switched off, and it's nearly inaudible in slow speed. High is still nowhere near as loud as the old style fan that was used in the old model.
A valuable option that was
A valuable option that was left out of the 4 bay version. Had to stick a piece of tape in them to shut the fans off.
I have the 4 slot version,
I have the 4 slot version, and disconnected its fans (the system / PS fan pull enough air through to cool down the drives). I very much love this device. 🙂
So ‘armor’ which usually
So ‘armor’ which usually protects one knight (or a vehicle) is a fixed spot for six drives, while ‘bento’, a box of several small tasty items, is a mobile case for just one drive. Marketing fail!
haha nice one 😉
haha nice one 😉