ICY DOCK ICYCube MB561U3S-4S 4 Bay USB 3.0 & eSATA(PM) Hot Swap 2.5"/3.5" SATA HDD/SSD External Enclosure - White

I've been looking for a simple JBOD enclosure that's reliable, and quiet. I've had nothing but great experiences with ICY DOCK products so I didn't think twice about buying this. Now, I wish I hadn't.My setup is pretty basic. I have a 2009 Macbook Pro running OS X 10.9 Server and use each disk as a time machine backup for my household computers. I have been doing this for a couple years now using 4 separate ICY DOCK single-bay enclosures. This setup is clunky, but has served me with little to no fuss.I wanted to reduce clutter and the number of power cables strung about so I decided to pick up a 4 bay JBOD enclosure. It seems they're either really expensive, or prone to failures and basically junk. I saw ICY DOCK's new product and hopped on it.The fit and finish is typical ICY DOCK. Better than you expect, but not perfect. I like the look of their products, and since I don't futz with them too much they've treated me well.The issue I have with the unit is it constantly drops connection when using USB 3 (I didn't try the eSATA port). I first thought maybe the power line was noisy, so I plugged it into my UPS with power conditioning and it did the same thing...constantly losing connection when doing writes. This just won't cut it when trying to use this for my family's backups.A firmware update may fix it, but I won't know because I just want it returned. I'll find another solution that may cost more, but is more reliable and has better customer support.

I called today about a serious problem with our brand new Icy Cube connected to our brand new iMac.Whoever talked to us said that it was probably a problem with our drives and suggested we try brand new drives. So for the next few hours we ran further tests with brand new, blank drives. The problems still happen 60%-70% of the time when there are 3-4 drives in the enclosure. It happens less often when there is only one drive in the enclosure. The errors have have been replicated in Safe Mode.Summary of the problems:• Unmounting errors. It will intermittently refuse to unmount EMPTY drives using the eject button or the Disk Utility unmount command. Would persist on a reboot of the system and a reboot of the enclosure. The only way to resolve was to forcibly unmount on the command line.• Freezes shutdown. 60-70% of the time trying to shutdown it will change to a black screen with a moveable cursor. This has now happened in safe mode with only blank drives in the enclosure as well as multiple times with drives with data. It will remain on this screen for as long as 45 minutes before we gave up and hard rebooted.These problems are not experienced on the same system in other enclosures.The representative we spoke to on the phone insisted that the "units were tested extensively". At this point we are disappointed in the product, to say the least, and are currently in the process of returning the IcyCube.

I have more than a few Icy Dock products, they are all built well and function good. The few days that I have had this new Icy Dock ICY Cube MB561U3S-4S Drive Enclosure leaves me disappoint anted. It is built well with a heavy aluminum case, easy removable trays and variable speed cooling fan. Where I have a problem is the USB 3.0 and eSata interfaces do not connect with everything or drops connections. Where I wanted to use the ICY Cube MB561U3S-4S it will not connect at all. I've used other external devices on the system and they all work well and have stable connections. I've also used a Mediasonic Raid enclosure which is stable and fast. I have tried it with several other systems and stable connections are few. I have found a stable connection on a system with a "Rosewill RC-226 PCI-Express 2.0 Low Profile SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card". This USB 3.0 ICY Cube MB561U3S-4S Drive Enclosure needs some work, good construction, poor interface.

I don't seem to have problems with the connection dropping out, though I have only been using it a day. The thing that I really hate is that when you shut down your computer, the unit stays on. It has to be powered down manually and the power button is located in a hard to reach area in the back. There is really no excuse for this in a unit this expensive. The unit is well made, attractive. The drives are well shielded and therefore quieter than other units I have looked at, but the lack of a power down option is a deal breaker for many people.

Always needing extra storage space and having some old hard drives laying around made the choice of the ICYCube a natural selection. The whole assembly felt solid and well made with quality looks and feel. Flipping the draws out for adding the hard drives was easy, the hard drives fitted into the trays comfortably with the mounting fixing screws supplied lining up perfectly. With four drives fitted I powered up the unit the supplied USB3 cable in my USB3 port on my PC. With in seconds all four drives were on my screen and ready for work. You can assign the unit to your media server and it becomes a media source on your network. Excellent product and well recommended. One point to note when I received my ICYCube the power cable was non-uk and I had to get the correct cable for this unit. They are standard cables that can be purchased in any computer shop for little money. Most of us may well have an old cable laying around that would do the job. Check this unit out as it could be right for you.

Es de las cosas que esperas que e den resultado y cuando llega y la tienes todas las expectativas las supera con creces. es una compra muy recomendable.

Bonsoir,que dire de plus qu'il faut l'avoir avec son macPro 2013, simple, super pratique et sans aucun soucis avec les disques dur 3.5Genial

Im Laufe des letzten Jahres habe ich mir sechs Dock's gegönnt. Vorher waren 14 einzelne 4TB-USB 3.0-Platten (und 3 Hubs) verbunden mit zwei Laptop's im Keller im Einsatz. Die hohen Temperaturen (~59°C) der Platten und das entstandene Kabel- und Netzteilgewirr war mir lästig.ICY-Dock löste meine Probleme. Von der Verarbeitung war ich positiv überrascht. Alles nötige zur Installation (USB-3.0- und eSATA-Kabel, 2,5"- und 3,5"-Schrauben) lag bei. Diese gestaltete sich auf der Dock-Seite einfacher als von mir erwartet. Das größte Problem war, die USB-Platten von ihrem alten Gehäuse zu befreien und die Daten zu übernehmen. Da ein proprietäres Format zum Einsatz kam, habe ich die Platten mit Mini-Tool Partition-Wizard neu partitionieren und formatieren müssen. Die Datentransferraten (USB 3.0) haben sich im Vergleich zu den vorigen SATA-USB-Wandlern der externen USB-Platten zum Besseren gewandelt. Die Lüfter sind hörbar und m. E. wäre ein Einsatz am Schreibtisch oder im Wohnbereich nicht sinnvoll. Allerdings betragen die Temperaturen jetzt 39-44°C und sind damit der Haltbarkeit eher zuträglich.Aktuell sind noch sieben 6TB-Platten hinzugekommen, womit sich die Gesamtkapazität auf 98TB erhöht hat. Als Software kommen Win8, StableBit DrivePool und SnapRAID zum Einsatz. Der Stromverbrauch mit vier installierten 4TB-Platten beträgt bei mir 32 W pro Dock. Die Platten einzeln im Original-Gehäuse haben 7 W gezogen. Das ergäbe bei vier Platten 28 W, jedoch ohne Lüfter und Hub. Drei Dock's sind ständig ein und stellen 58TB zur Verfügung. Zusammen mit dem Server entstehen somit weniger als 300,- € Stromkosten pro Jahr. Der Rest dient als Backup und Datensicherung und wird nur für zwei Stunden pro Woche aktiviert.

Die Box läuft bei mir mit 4 Platten im Dauerbetrieb seit gut 1.5 Jahren und es gibt absolut keine Probleme!Es bestand die Sorge, dass das USB nicht zuverlässig funktioniert. Tut es aber wohl. Ich habe daher absolut nichts an der Box auszusetzen. Sie hängt an einem Barebone mit Linux. Auf drei der vier Platten ist ein mdraid Level 5 mit btrfs und es tut alles wunderbar -- auch das Power-Down der Platten nach 15min Inaktivität.An der Performance kann ich nichts aussetzen. Es handelt sich um HDDs, daher kann ich die USB3.0 Kapazität nicht ausreizen. Aber ~125MB/s aufs RAID schreiben funktioniert tadellos.Kaufempfehlung!