Icy Dock MB559U3S External 3.5″ SATA Hard Drive Enclosure Review

ICY Dock are continually improving their line-up of Hard Drive Enclosures, hoping to find the perfect solution for a wide audience. Today, we are looking at an External Bay enclosure which holds a 3.5" SATA hard disk drive. The MB559U3S features an ultra-slim design which offers great portability and reduced footprint. In fact, it is only 3 centimeters wide, meaning it can sit in the corner of a desk without demanding space. The MB559U3S uses a passive cooling system and is built around an aluminium body with a ventilation grill on top. It is available in two colours, and both feature USB 3.0 and eSATA connections. Specifications Model Number : MB559U3S-1SB Color : Matt Black Drive Fit : Single 3.5" SATA I / II / III hard drive Host Interface : 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s port 1 x USB 3.0 port (USB 2.0 compatible) Transfer Rate (max. bus speed): Up to 3Gb/s via eSATA Up to 5Gb/s via USB 3.0 Up to 480Mb/s via USB 2.0 Insert & Extract connection Via : Direct SATA hard drive connection Structure : Aluminum body w/ partial plastic Drive Cooling : Aluminum heat dispersion w/ top ventilation panel LED Indication : Device Power: White LED Drive Activity: Flashing White LED OS Requirement : Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP/VISTA/7 Mac OS 9.0 or higher Dimension (L x W x H) : 191 x 142.6 x 31.2 mm Weight : 1.16 lbs. In typical ICY Dock fashion we have a grey box with the product picture in the middle. On either side we have information about the key features, mentioning - 'removable and stable', 'cool and quiet', 'stylish and retractable' and 'durable and secure'. The back of the box lists the specifications of this device; in this case we have the black MB559U3S-1SB version. Included with this device is a simple user guide, three boxes for cables as well as some screws and a few rubber mounts in case you want to stack several of these devices. The boxes contain; a USB 3.0 cable, an eSATA cable and a power adapter. The ICY Dock Enclosure is extremely thin and attractively designed. From the left we can see the words 'ICY Dock' embossed in white. The right side of the chassis has no writing. On the front is a silver lever, which is used to push/pull the HDD in/out of the dock. There is also a little clip at the bottom that releases this lever. As the HDD goes in from the front, we are not surprised to find the ports are at the back of the device. These include the on/off switch, power socket, USB 3.0 port, eSATA port, a Kensington Lock slot, and a button which releases the feet. The feet, while small, do help to stabilise the device, and can be pushed in out of the way when not in use. They are spring loaded so when you press the release button they fling out into place. After sliding the clip at the front the lever comes out and can be used to pull the HDD bracket out. The HDD bracket is simple but there is nothing to reduce vibrations or dampen the sound level etc. Placing a 3.5" HDD next to the bracket you can see there is a plastic support that has to be removed, before installing the HDD. The Hard drive is held in place with 4 screws. To test this ICY Dock enclosure we will be using a fast solid state drive ... the Kingston HyperX 3k 120GB. As such we will be able to see the true and full performance of the ICY Dock Blizzard Enclosure. We also tested this device with a Maxtor DiamondMax 20 3.5" hard drive ... just to see how the ICY Dock chassis deals with a hot running mechanical drive. Processor: AMD Bulldozer FX 8-core 8150 CPU @ 4.2 GHz Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 Cooler: Antec Kuhler H20 920 CPU Cooler Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1800+ MHz Graphics Cards: AMD Radeon 6450 HD (GPU @ 850 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 1000 MHz) Power Supply: Akasa Venom Power 750W Boot Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB SSD (OS only) OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit Software: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 SSD 1 (for speed testing): Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB SSD HDD (for testing): Maxtor DiamondMax 20 The performance of this ICY Dock enclosure is good, but the Solid State drive is clearly being limited by the USB 3.0 interface. We know the Kingston HyperX 3k SSD is much faster when connected to a SATA 3 Gbps port. That said, it certainly won't hinder performance when paired up with standard 3.5" HDD via the eSATA or USB 3.0 connectors. USB 2.0 runs at a rather restricted speed and we can see this clearly from the results as USB 3.0 is 5x faster than USB 2.0. In terms of acoustical performance, the MB559U3S is very impressive. While we could hear the Maxtor mechanical drive it was much louder outside the chassis. After using the DiamondMax drive under stressful conditions for an hour, the temperature didn't reach a critical level. In terms of design, we are impressed with every aspect of the Icy Dock MB559U3S. The construction quality is excellent and we like the thin, compact design. It certainly doesn't take up much space on a desk and will look good next to speakers, monitors and other peripherals. This item is available in either silver or black and both look great. The company have also incorporated the Kensington Security Slot into the enclosure, allowing the user to lock this device to a desk. This is a fantastic feature for a busy office environment, although we don't know how many people at home will find it useful. In terms of performance it is on par with many other enclosures available on the market today. Fast Solid State Drives will be limited by the enclosure, but it is primarily designed to be used with large mechanical drives, for offline storage. The enclosure is well designed, helping reduce mechanical drive noise while offering limited cooling potential. We were generally impressed with the simplicity and elegance of the Icy Dock. We were able to position the device just behind our monitor so it wasn't taking up any usable desk space at all. It is also possible to buy several of these and stack them on their sides, but personally I'd look at buying a different enclosure if you were going to do that. At a price of just over £56 from Amazon.co.uk this is certainly a well designed product and worth the money. Pros Looks good. Well designed. Easy to install 3.5" HDDs. Silent operation. Kensington Security Slot. Cons Only caters for 3.5" drives. Cheaper alternatives available. USB 3.0 performance limited. Kitguru says: An attractively designed product at a good price.