Which ICY Box?

If you have a SATA drive, get the first one. If you don't get the second one. I have the second one and it has been working well for a couple of years now.
 
I've got the first one using eSata. I've got no complaints, works great.

The plug and play isn't 100% true as it all depends on your motherboard. My old motherboard automatically detected the drive when I switched the IcyBox on but with my new one I have to go to Device Manager and refresh the list before Windows sees the drive.

You don't have to install any other programs so it's correct in that sence.
 
If you're looking for an external SATA drive caddy, you might want to get ocuk to order you a 'icy box IB-361-STUS' simply because it's got the easiest and quickest method of connection ever. You simply push the 'key' (or paper clip) into the little hole on the front face of the unit. The front pops open, you slide your drive in and close the front. All in all it takes about 10 seconds, plug the drive unit in and it just works, it comes with a SATA cable, E-Sata backplane and everything you need. I was seriously impressed at its ease of use.

Here it is, I couldn't find it on the ocuk site, but I'm sure they would be able to order you one: http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=692684adb3.jpg

The second link you've provided shows one of the early model caddies. It has 4 big silver screws on one surface, you simply unscrew them and connect your drive place it in the box and screw the top plate back ontop of the drive and it's ready to go. Installation of a harddrive takes around 5 minutes. I've got one of these too and its very useful for IDE\PATA drives.

HTH
 
Cool, So am i right in thinking that if i buy a SATA version, i can still connect it to my pc via USB A-B cable as if it was a normal IDE hard drive?
 
Leigh K said:
Cool, So am i right in thinking that if i buy a SATA version, i can still connect it to my pc via USB A-B cable as if it was a normal IDE hard drive?
Click to expand...

Yes, it shows itself in Windows Explorer as a seperate harddrive just as your present internal drives do. I have the 2nd one I referenced permanantly connected to this system, whilst the former floats between this system and the media center.

HTH
 
You may also want to consider another make, ie. This - this will take IDE or SATA HDDs, through either USB2 or eSATA, also there is an external switch which means you don't have to open up the caddy to change from USB2->eSATA->USB2...:)
 
get the model 361 something

has esata and easy removal


the build quality of the 35x series seems shoddy compared to the 36x, the 36x housing is a lot lot nicer
 
jbloggs said:
You may also want to consider another make, ie. This - this will take IDE or SATA HDDs, through either USB2 or eSATA, also there is an external switch which means you don't have to open up the caddy to change from USB2->eSATA->USB2...:)
Click to expand...

Having had an 'integral' branded external caddy, I can only say I found the buildquality quite shabby. The one I received you pulled out the silver front, and it had 3 wires of which 2 were attached to something as it seems as though during the build phase, they had trapped the wires into one of the runners on the inner edge of the unit. So I pulled the silver end out, it sliced the cable and I ended up with a non-working unit.

I wouldn't buy another, if I were to purchase another external caddy it would be one of the two I referenced in the followup post to the OP.
 
so is the icy box worth the extra money over the akasa enclosure? Was looking at getting the akasa one pretty soon, might have to change my mind if they are not that great.
 
Most definately. I wouldn't hesitate to buy an icybox over any other enclosure, they seem to be built to last.
 
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