Icy Box 2 Bay Enclosure

tnx · 21 Aug 2017 at 21:00

Been wanting a hard drive enclosure for a while now but never got round to getting one.
I am feeling the need to update my storage drives connected to my PC and to finally buy an external enclosure and drive\drives for safe backups.

Was looking on OCUK at drives when I saw the Icy Box.

Was wondering has anybody had dealings with one of these and got owt to say about it.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x IcyBox 2 Bay JBOD Enclosure 3.5" SATA HDD (IB-3662U3)= £59.99

Total: £59.99
(includes shipping: £0.00)

cheers..

GWANGY · 26 Aug 2017 at 10:54

I had an icy box 2bay and it was a nice pice of kit .. easyswapy bays, all metal construction very good could do span, mirror oe raid 0. all round very good .
I got rid of it becoz of two things
1. I got a nice microserver
2. iit had a problem formatting any drive over 2tb in the box.. it could handle drives over 2tb , 3tb+ but couldnt format them . I had to format them in my desktop.
def 8/10...

tnx · 27 Aug 2017 at 09:37

Thanks for that info GWANGY. If I get one of these I will remember about its formatting woe.

I was looking at cables and stuff like that the other day and then routed through my pile of old PC bits and come up with a plan to have a go at making my own little rig, might be fun trying.

Cheers.

GWANGY · 29 Aug 2017 at 14:03

aCTUALLY MY box had quite an old controller (jmicron) so I am fairly sure anything purchased in the last five years WOULD be able to format a "large" drive.
I had it connected to a wdtv so I had 5Tb of local storage .Oh yeah it was usb2 as well.
It was just very handy with the no cable drive bays for copying stuff from one disk to another.

tnx · 29 Aug 2017 at 18:23

I have been messing today and found a problem with my everyday machine. My e_SATA ports are NOT working. I recently went to Win 10 and have only just tested them, they were working on Win 7. So I recon I will do a test install of 7 onto a spare drive and test them out. It maybe a dodgy cable ?
Want to use e_SATA cause on my Z77 board USB3 does not work at all on Win 10.
Cant afford to buy new modern bits at the mo.

Probably end up keep doing what I do now. Just plug my backup storage drives directly into my machine on the onboard SATA ports then remove when done. Just fancy a more professional looking way of doing it.

coupe69 · 29 Aug 2017 at 23:22

Presumably you've made sure you've got correct/up to date drivers for both e-SATA & USB 3.0? If both have stopped working since upgrading to Windows 10 then that says to me that it's a driver related issue.

tnx · 30 Aug 2017 at 06:47

I sorted my eSATA problem. I did do a test install of Win 7 and the eSATA ports did not work ?
I even did a right quick build of my 775 Abit board which has eSATA and had no joy there either .
So I manage to lay my hands on another cable and that worked on all three machines. I take from this that for what ever reason my original cable has failed. All I can think is I must have trapped it and broke a wire inside ?
Looked and found a round cable so gunna order myself a new one, or two.

As for my USB3 prob, yep. I have tried every driver I could lay my hands on but had no luck.
It may well be my stick at fault. It is one of the first ones to come out and pretty old now, maybe new ones are better ?
Might have to buy one just to test.

bledd · 30 Aug 2017 at 14:41

I'd get a Synology, then keep it in another room where hard drive noise isn't an issue. Can't stand the sound of hard drives.

tnx · 30 Aug 2017 at 17:53

Just been looking round at stuff and come across this !

Keep my backup drives within my case, there is plenty of room in my 800D case. Connect them to the spare SATA ports, two of and use the switch to run them when needed. Just under £30 cheaper than an enclosure and no cables to buy either.

Every one's a winner.

OUT OF STOCK. Cant find one..

Nobody's a winner

skyripper · 30 Aug 2017 at 20:44

What's the point in that?
As in what advantage are you going to get?

tnx · 30 Aug 2017 at 21:18

skyripper said:
What's the point in that?
As in what advantage are you going to get?

Saves me a few quid....

Just switch on the drives when I want to back summet up, then switch them off again.

Virtually what I do now. My back up drives are just HDD's, no enclosure or owt. When I want to save important files I open my case, connect up a HDD to SATA port and power, save my stuff then eject the drive and unplug.

This is why I fancied an enclosure. Leave it plugged in to eSATA then power it on to save then power off.

Sounds the same to me, have my HDD's plugged in to the onboard SATA ports, then use a SATA power switch to turn on and off.

All sounds the same to me but having the drives in different places, the end result is the same. Safe files.

skyripper · 31 Aug 2017 at 06:58

Google a 3.5" Drive Toaster. I used one with eSata and USB for a number of years before building a NAS.

tnx · 31 Aug 2017 at 14:33

I had one of those a good few years back, old one though. No eSATA and only USB2 it worked ok, very slow, then it suddenly stopped working for what ever reason. Full enclosure would be better than that.

Looked at building a NAS out of an i3 machine I have, for my needs a bit too much faffing about.

Cheers for the idea though.

tnx · 12 Sep 2017 at 17:03

Update...

I did get myself a couple of new 2 TB drives for my desktop, which are very nice.
Did not buy an enclosure or one of those HDD switch thingies, went off that idea, did not want to spoil the look of my tower.

But....

I was given an old Acer Aspire PC. Did a full build a while back for my sons mate and just the other day he brought his old one over for me saying I could have it for free.... Which is very nice.

It is a little thing and immediately my brain went, build your own enclosure. So I did.

Ihad already bought two eSATA to SATA back plate brackets and a long'ish eSATA to eSATA cable. I gutted the Acer box, modified the front to accommodate the two eSATA ports, minus the metal bracket.
Slung in my two storage drives. Hot wired the ATX plug and bingo....

It works a treat. The power plug is plugged into a switchable extension so all I have to do is switch on the plug and the drives spin up and I just switch the eSATA cable from one to the other the access or save my files.

Exactly what I wanted but at the cost of a couple of brackets and a cable which weren't much at all.

Pretty happy with myself.

All I need to do now is build up this here Acer machine into a spare case I have and have a play with that.

Job done...

Looks pretty snazzy sat under my desk too.