ICY DOCK Rugged 4 x 2.5 SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Mobile Rack Enclosure for 5.25" Bay | ToughArmor MB994SP-4S

Since it isn't very clear in the product description, this is an Icy Dock MB994SP-4S. There's a lot more information about this item on the manufacturer's site: [...] I've had this product installed for about a week in a small home file-server. I decided on 2.5" drives so I could go with a smaller form-factor case and still have room for a lot of storage. So far, I'm pretty impressed with this product. It's solid and has a very high build quality. The drive cages work flawlessly and installing this was extremely simple. It takes two molex plugs for power so make sure your power supply has them as some newer ones may not. For anyone with a lot of spare external 5.25" bays, you could throw a few of these in your computer (provided you have the sata ports) for some massive storage. Take note: As the documentation states, you MUST use the provided screws to install this or risk damage to the unit.

I was pleasantly surprised with this product. It often seems any type of conversion bay from any vendor at any price point has poor reviews or downsides to it. This turned out to be great. I had very few issues to raise with mine and even those ones weren't a big deal. I used mine to house 4 SSDs for my rig. Seeing as my case didn't have native 2.5" bays/trays it was nice to separate all my 2.5" SSDs somewhere they fit. It is fully SATA3 (6.0Gbps) compliant. When putting it all together it felt like everything wasn't going to line up, but once I was done it did. It looked great and fit in just fine. Pros: -Nice sleek look. Metal front panels look nice and are durable. Other brands use plastic and/or look cheap and use flashy "gamer" colors. -Activity/power LEDs for each drive, although my case is usually shut so I don't see them. -Only requires 2 molex ports, others require more. With a molex splitter it was easy to power both off of 1 source. -2 Fans. They move a good bit of air too. They probably weren't even necessary for 2.5" drives but they're a welcome feature. -The molex and SATA ports are spread out nicely, and line up with their corresponding drives. I've seen others where they're tight, lined up sideways, etc., making it difficult to plug everything in and maintain cable management. Plenty of room here. Cons: -Drive trays can be difficult to open and close. My SSDs were a tight fit to slide in and out, and I felt like the SATA pins could've gotten scratched in the process. I have no intention of "hot-swapping" these drives any time soon, if ever, so these aren't an issue going forward. -Could've been a little cheaper, but this price point is the norm for this type of product with these features.

The drive bay is well constructed, easy to install, and works well with many different 2.5" drives. I'd give this product an enthusiastic 5 stars if it didn't have a MAJOR and unnecessary design flaw: extremely noisy fans. I had just finished a high-end custom build in a Fractal Design XL R2 case when I fired the system up for the first time and IMMEDIATELY noticed the noise. At first, I assumed that it was coming from the graphics card and I was very surprised to realize that the drive bay fans were the culprit. Including the ones for the CPU and GPU, the case has 10 fans. The two in the Icy Dock drive bay create more noise than all the other fans combined, and by a LARGE MARGIN. Other reviews refer to a fan-speed switch. The drive bay (MB994SP-4S) I bought does NOT have such a switch. DO NOT buy this product unless you don't care about system noise. If you plan on using these in a dedicated server room or if you're deaf, then no problem -- go for it. Otherwise, get something else. FYI, the noise is not "white". It sounds more like a hair dryer than a typical computer fan (although not nearly as loud of course).

Fabrication is good. Internal holders could be made smoother. Fans needed a shoot of wet graphite to quiet them down. Works as advertised.

I use these Icy dock bays to achieve storage capacities that exceed what could be achieved with 3.5" drives. Using the 4 bay MB994SP-4S I can fit 4 Seagate 5TB 2.5" drives into a single 5.25" bay. I have a modified super tower with 12 5.25" bays, an Adaptec 72405 RAID controller and a lot of data to store. The densest (as of the time I'm writing this review) for 3.5" drives is 10TB per drive with a 5 in 3 drive chassis, which would allow for 50TB in 3 bays. Where as with these drive chassis, 5TB X 4 per bay allows for 60TB in 3 bays. The 5TB 2.5" drive is 15mm thick and the MB994SP-4S allows for 15mm drives. the 6 bay version only allows for up to 9.5mm and the 8 bay model MB998SP-B allows for up to 7mm, which is perfect my Samsung 850 SSDs. When I am done, I will have 7 MB994SP-4S, 1 MB998SP-B and of course, a port expander for to allow for all the Seagate drives (the Adaptec 72405 only has 24 internal 6Gb/s SAS/SATA ports.) With a 1GB cache and each drive having a maximum internal transfer rate of less 200MB/s, putting the Seagate drives on port expanders for double the drives per channel will not impede the performance. 8 ports reserved for the SSDs and 16 ports attached to the port expanders, I will have the storage capacity I need without compromising performance. For that matter, I could use the Intel SATA controller on the motherboard for my least critical array and avoid the need for the port expanders. I haven't decided yet. LOL. Now, why Icy dock and not any of the other brands out there? Because the Icy dock drive bays are the highest quality and most reliable. Also, if I ever lose or accidentally damage a tray, I can buy just a replacement tray. These are perfect for hot swappable drives in a RAID environment.

This is a well built and solid drive bay. The dimensions are good, the trays slide in and out easy, and everything appears to fit as expected. It was very easy to install and get going, and everything feels secure. I don't feel like I need to worry about anything. I like that there are indicator lights for each bay that are very easy to see, but not super bright. I actually disconnected the chassis HD LED in favor of the drive bay indicators to dim down the light splash a bit. The one con that I'll give it is the fans are noisy. I expected there to possibly be some whine as is typical for fans of this size, but they actually developed a rattle, and did so within a couple of days of installing. The fans are relatively easy to remove. There are 4 screws, 2 on each side, and the back end slides out. Then there are 2 screws per fan, which slide out once the screws are removed. Then disconnect and put the assembly back in the bay.

One of the inside pieces was broken when I got it and one of the drawers gets stuck when I try to pull it out. Just not very well made.

An elegant option to house multiple SSDs with the added benefit of hot-swap. Fans were loud so I easily removed them with a screwdriver Pros: Very sturdy, no plastic 2 cooling fans 2 molex power inputs No keys required Cons: LED light bleeds out VERY tight fit (maybe just my case)

Le produit est conforme à ce que j'attendais, très professionnel et bien fini. Mais il est trop bruyant pour un usage domestique (2 x Ventilo 40mm).

Good value for money

Unfortunately took me too many months to get around to actually fitting this device otherwise I would have returned it. The concept is really good, the price is reasonable. There are two reasons for knocking off three stars: 1) You need ultra short mounting screws to fit this drive cage into a drive bay (I'm talking 1 or 2mm long). Regular length screws (once tightened) protrude too far into the case which then catches on the drive cages so you are unable to insert or remove the individual drive cages properly! 2) I have been using the icy dock for less than a month now and the fans in the unit have started to make an appalling grindy/buzzy noise. Fortunately (?!?) the unit disassembles quite easily so I will be able to replace the two 40x40x10mm 12V fans, however, I was not expecting to carry out such an operation after only a month. If I could I'd add half a star back on for the ease with which the unit comes apart (and goes back together). Just a matter of removing 4 screws (2 either side of the case) and the fans and SATA connectors come out easily . A simple but effective design.

A good dock, great looks, easy to fit. However, its fan is noisy and rattles, and it cannot be turned off as indicated in the details. The version sent is the double Molex powered version, and does not have these features, while the SATA powered one does. Consequently, my super quiet PC now sounds like it's on its last legs, simply because of the terrible fan. Replacing with something else and very disappointed.