Icybox eSATA?

Craig321 · 27 Aug 2007 at 18:25

I'm hopefully getting my hard drive setup soon, it'll include some sort of external 500GB for backups.

As the external will be used quite a bit to backup an internal media 500GB hard drive USB2.0 will be a bit slower than I'd like, so eSATA should do the trick.

I just wondered if these Icybox eSATA enclosures are good? Reliable, fast, etc.?

What kind of speeds should I expect out of it?

EDIT

Also, will the Icybox give sufficient cooling to transfer say... 200GB+ of data in one backup session?

Thanks,
Craig.

Felix Da Housecat · 27 Aug 2007 at 18:36

If you get one with the ESATA connectors they should be as fast as your SATA drives at the mo, so they are more than upto the job of backing up your data.

I've got an icy box, and it seems well made, as for cooling, i've not had any problems with heat build up.

jbloggs · 27 Aug 2007 at 22:29

Craig:

I have This Icy Box, and using a 400GB Seagate SATA 7200.10 with it, as regards transfer speeds, with USB2 in HDTach I get an Average read of 35MB/s and with eSATA, an Average read of 64MB/s (ie. full rate, as already mentioned)...the Averge read you get with eSATA will simply depend on the transfer rate of that individual HDD.

200GB+ of data in one backup session?

I have experienced no problems with any heat issues, even after transferring just under 200GBs of backup data.

Craig321 · 28 Aug 2007 at 02:11

Nice, sounds like a good idea to go with an eSATA Icybox rather than a regular external then

Just a quick question: do eSATA enclosures use power from the 'wall' or would it get plugged into the molex socket on my eSATA bracket?

Also, anyone know the difference between the Icybox IB361-ST-US-BL and the Icybox IB-360ASTUS-B-BL apart from colour?

Thanks for the help everyone

jbloggs · 28 Aug 2007 at 02:54

do eSATA enclosures use power from the 'wall' or would it get plugged into the molex socket on my eSATA bracket?

My Icy Box came with an external power supply, a 12v (I assume this is the voltage) AC-DC converter, one end goes into "wall" power socket, other end into Icy Box. I think generally 3.5" cadies use an external power supply, whereas the 2.5" are powered via USB.

the difference between the Icybox IB361-ST-US-BL and the Icybox IB-360ASTUS-B-BL apart from colour?

I think the only difference is that the IB361-ST-US-BL only takes SATA HDDs, whereas the IB-360ASTUS-B-BL takes both IDE & SATA.

Craig321 · 29 Aug 2007 at 14:13

jbloggs said:
My Icy Box came with an external power supply, a 12v (I assume this is the voltage) AC-DC converter, one end goes into "wall" power socket, other end into Icy Box. I think generally 3.5" cadies use an external power supply, whereas the 2.5" are powered via USB.

I think the only difference is that the IB361-ST-US-BL only takes SATA HDDs, whereas the IB-360ASTUS-B-BL takes both IDE & SATA.

Ok, cool. Thanks very much jbloggs.