HD Enclosure - Advice Needed

herr_brush · 8 Jan 2007 at 00:45

OK what do you think? I need an enclosure for a new hard drive (Samsung spinpoint 400GB, 16MB cache, SATA II). My main criteria requirements are that it cools the drive without being too noisy and the connection is fast. I've narrowed it down to the Icy Box ones:

SATA Connection
or
NAS Connection

Are there any advantages to going with the second one as opposed to simply sharing the drive through windows if I want to network it in the future? Also, are there any better enclosures for my needs?

Thanks!

TheCrow · 8 Jan 2007 at 01:12

only thing i can think of is its always goin to be available, unlike if it was through your computer - which would need to be turned on (though i think most of us have pc's on 24/7 round here)

herr_brush · 8 Jan 2007 at 21:34

Yeah thats true. Not sure if it would be a deal breaker though.

Anybody here own one of the Icy Boxes linked above? How are they for cooling and noise?

ringo747 · 8 Jan 2007 at 21:38

As far as i can see the NAS one only supports IDE disks. You said your new disk is a SATA-II disk.

Just happened to notice that!

If im wrong please ignore.

jbloggs · 8 Jan 2007 at 21:49

herr_brush:

I recently purchased the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-360AStUS SATA + USB Combo, have fitted a 120GB PATA Maxtor DiamondMax 9, it works very well, good transfer rate (I think), in HDTach over USB2, Average read 31MB/s. I have it attached to 1 computer, with it set to "Shared" over a small network.

If you use a SATA I/II HDD in it, you can transfer data either over USB2 (31MB/s) or by SATA (full Average read of HDD, ie 55MB/s +). A good bit of hardware for the price.

herr_brush · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:01

jbloggs said:
herr_brush:

I recently purchased the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-360AStUS SATA + USB Combo, have fitted a 120GB PATA Maxtor DiamondMax 9, it works very well, good transfer rate (I think), in HDTach over USB2, Average read 31MB/s. I have it attached to 1 computer, with it set to "Shared" over a small network.

If you use a SATA I/II HDD in it, you can transfer data either over USB2 (31MB/s) or by SATA (full Average read of HDD, ie 55MB/s +). A good bit of hardware for the price.

Great thats what I wanted to hear. I've ordered it now!

Rob F1UK · 17 Feb 2007 at 14:20

Hi guys

Sorry to dredge this thread up, but would SATA version of this enclosure support a 3.5-inch Seagate 500GB SATAII 7200.10 drive? I'm looking for an enclosure, but keep on coming up on 400GB limitations.

Thanks.

rpstewart · 17 Feb 2007 at 15:09

According to the product data sheet the IB-360AStUS can take any size of disk.

http://www.raidsonic.de/de/data/data_pdf/icybox/icybox_ib360astuse.pdf

jbloggs · 17 Feb 2007 at 17:23

I have a 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200.10 in the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-360AStUS - it operates very well, especially through an eSATA connection, I'm sure large SATA HDDs will work just as well.

OspreyO · 26 Feb 2007 at 11:46

jbloggs said:
I have a 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200.10 in the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-360AStUS - it operates very well, especially through an eSATA connection, I'm sure large SATA HDDs will work just as well.

What transfer rates do you get with that?