Wednesday, February 29, 2012

MB082SP review - storagereview.com


Icy Dock is well known for their extensive line of drive adapters that solve dozens of issues around fitting x number of drives into y drive bay slots. The net result of each is that users maximize the number of drives their PC can hold. Icy Dock's latest iteration on this concept is the EZ-Fit Pro, which takes two 9.5mm 2.5" SSDs or hard drives and fits them into a 3.5" drive bracket.........read the full review

Monday, February 27, 2012

ICY TIP: ICY DOCK MB982SP-1S - Professional SSD Converter for your Professional Mac Pro System


ICY DOCK MB982SP-1S - Professional SSD (Solid State Drive) Converter for your Professional Mac Pro System
Restore New Life Into Your Older Hard Drives to Maximize Available Free Space
What is the reason to have a Mac Pro system? Some people may point to the performance, and while others will point to the appearance. No matter the reason, you tend to discover regardless that Apple has put an extraordinary amount of effort of the Mac Pro line in both its performance and appearance. Using a system like the Mac Pro, maintaining top notch performance is vital. However, using mechanical hard drive creates a massive bottleneck in any system. Therefore, SSD (Solid State Drive) is undoubtedly the most important component to upgrade with your Mac Pro. However, the Mac Pro Sled is only designed to fit 3.5" hard drives making it naturally incompatible with SSD, which use a 2.5" format. With that said, a converter kit is required to upgrade an SSD on your Mac Pro system. Using the same thorough approach as Apple has, we designed the MB982SP-1S 2.5" to 3.5" SATA SSD converter for Mac Pro users.

The design of the MB982SP-1S is specifically styled to match the Mac Pro monochrome coloring, giving an excellent finished look overall. Keeping the same styling all across the board keeps everything neat and professional. The crucial part however, is how the MB982SP-1S will work in the Mac Pro. The functionality to be able to fit perfectly into your Mac Pro is a must, and using carefully designed mounting holes to match exactly with a normal 3.5" hard drive, the MB982SP-1S will mount correctly with any Mac Pro version to date.

What areas would SSD's increase the performance of your system? Silveradosys.blogspot.com has done several real world tests on performance using iCal, Numbers, Pages, iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop, iTunes, Final Cut, Illustrator, MS Word, Safari, Mail and Startup. Using an HDD versus Intel X25-M SSD there is hardly a comparison between the two in the results. Also, the experiment was conducted in early 2009, and so using some of today's top of the line SSD's will yield greater results than what has already been demonstrated. For any media professionals who want to keep their productivity at its peak, using an SSD will help achieve that goal. See the below chart for the other applications that were performed:



The MB982SP-1S is a full metal heavy duty 2.5" converter that will protect your SSD against a direct hit to the drive, provides better heat dissipation to the SSD (Yes, SSD does produce heats). Our patented "tool-less" design allow users to quickly install or remove SSDs with no tools required. This is perfect for media professionals when transporting your SSD from one location to the other, with or without MB982SP-1S.
Don't compromise yourself by using slow 3.5" hard disk; don't compromise yourself by using the average SSD converter. You are a professional user with a high-end, world's fastest computer system and you deserve a fast SSD with the best quality SSD converter.

Oh, there is one more thing; the MB982SP-1S supports SATA 6Gbps speed with no performance loss when using with any SSDs. Click the icons below for performance tests:

Click HERE to learn more about MB982SP-1S

Please contact us for any questions you may have.
Live Chat:Click Here
Email: tech@icydock.com

Friday, February 24, 2012

Icy News: HGST With First 7,200rpm, 7mm, One-Disk, 2.5-Inch HDD, at 500GB


"6Gb SATA interface and 32MB cache
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has shipped more than 25 million Travelstar Z-series, 7mm z-height, 2.5-inch HDD, for thin and light portable computers, ultra-compact CE devices and industrial systems. 

The company is now shipping its new 500GB, Travelstar Z7K500 drive - the industry's fastest and highest capacity, one-disk, 7,200 RPM HDD. All Hitachi GST Z-series drives can serve as a direct replacement for standard, 2.5-inch 9.5mm hard drives. They feature common connectors and mounting points for simple integration into existing systems, and enable design flexibility to differentiate and meet market demands for new thinner, lighter and more robust devices..."
- via Storagenewsletter

Hitachi is pushing the envelope with the currently fastest and highest capacity 7200RPM HDD. It is quite thin as well, the height at 7mm. The more interesting part is how this is used with the new ultrabooks that were shown off at this year's CES. By combining an HDD with SSD cache, allowing for faster I/O access times. This sort of design does have it's compromises which is the price. Producing and adding a fast cache memory for your HDD costs much more than just using a slower hard drive alone. With that in mind, the price for ultrabooks and memory such as this will cost more than your more bigger laptops. Will this type of design be worth a purchase? Let us know!

Monday, February 20, 2012

New Product Announcement – ICY DOCK MB082SP EZ-FIT PRO 2 x 2.5” SSD/HDD to 3.5” Full Metal Bracket


Icy Dock is proud to introduce the MB082SP EZ-FIT PRO, the newest product in the incredibly popular SSD/HDD bracket & converter line. The EZ-FIT PRO is a full metal dual 2.5" to 3.5" bracket with a matte black finish, featuring a hassle free installation requiring no tools or screws required to install or change your HDD/SSD. The heavy duty solid metal construction and the simplicity of the drive installation make protecting and swapping your hard drives as easier than ever.
Key Feature:

* EZ-Lock mechanism for tool-less drive installation
* Heavy Duty Full metal construction with matte black finish
* Fits 2 x 2.5" SSD/HDD into one 3.5" device bay
* Compatible with SSD or hard drives up to 9.5mm height
* Anti-Vibration design for improved reliability
* Universally designed screw placement for maximum compatibility

Click HERE to learn more about EZ-FIT PRO
ICY DOCK

Tel: 626.956.8800
Fax: 626.956.8811
1307 John Reed Ct.
City of Industry, California 91745
Sales e-mail: sales01@cremax.com
Support e-mail: tech@icydock.com

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Icy News: Intel 6Gb SATA SSD 520 Using 25nm Arriving

"With LSI SandForce controller, 480GB at $999 in Q1,000
Intel Corporation announced its fastest, most robust client/consumer SSD, the Solid-State Drive 520 Series, a 6 gigabit-per-second SATA III SSD produced using Intel compute-quality 25-nanometer NAND memory process technology.

intel_ssd_520

Aimed at delivering performance for the PC enthusiasts, gamers, SMBs, the SSD 520 has throughput performance, new security features and reliability to meet the intensive user requirements.

Any consumer application requiring high throughput and bandwidth, low latencies and accelerated speed will benefit from the SSD 520. Software developers, architects, accountants, engineers, musicians, media creators and artists are just some of the professionals that will find that the SSD 520's package of features can make an impact on their productivity. With faster performance for graphic renderings, compiling, data transfers and system boot-ups, users can speed through multi-tasking or once-cumbersome application wait times with SSD 520 Series.

"We tapped Intel engineering to create a client SSD that delivers performance on all fronts with obsessively high reliability," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "The Intel SSD 520 once again raises the industry bar on SSD performance, quality and reliability to dramatically improve user experience."

Unlike a traditional HDD with spinning disks and moveable parts, an SSD is based on silicon, NAND flash memory specifically, to create a lower power, more reliable and faster storage solution that can keep up with today's most demanding applications, Internet streaming and intense multi-tasking.

Based on its own 25nm Intel compute-quality NAND flash memory and a 6gbps SATA III interface, the SSD 520 uses an LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor with an Intel co-defined and validated firmware release, to create an SSD that sets new industry performance benchmarks. It delivers up to 80,000 maximum 4K random write IOPS and up to 50,000 4K random read IOPS. Sequential read performance of up to 550MB/s and up to 520MB/s sequential writes also accelerate and improve user productivity. This is backed by thousands of hours of Intel testing and validation, including more than 5,000 individual tests.

"We worked closely with Intel to leverage their deep understanding of the NAND flash, ultimately providing a unique and optimized solution for client computing applications with the LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor," said Michael Raam, vice president and general manager of LSI's Flash Components Division, formed by LSI's acquisition of SandForce. "Working through Intel's extensive validation process ensures the Intel 520 SSD will raise the bar in delivering top-tier performance and superior quality and reliability over the life of the drive."

The SSD 520 will mark the high end of its client SSD offerings and include these new features: a range of user capacities from 60GB to 480GB, AES 256 bit encryption capabilities and password protection for added security in the event of theft or power loss.

According to PCMark Vantage benchmarking, users of the SSD 520 may see productivity gains through an up to 78 percent boost in overall PC responsiveness, and gamers will see an up to 88 percent jump in performance to enhance their gaming experience. IT professionals will not only provide this additional performance and productivity to their customers/employees, but find that the Intel SSD 520 also delivers on reliability, improved security, smoother operations and lower total operational costs.

"Our game development workflow involves a combination of large batch process and aggressive interactive pre-visualization, all highly parallelized to the point that the storage performance becomes a major bottleneck," said John Carmack, founder and technical director of id Software, a gaming software developer and creators of Doom and Quake. "For many of our workloads, Intel SSDs have doubled throughput, and in some cases involving mapping tens of gigabytes of image data, we have seen an honest order of magnitude performance improvement, which is a rare and wonderful thing."

The SSD 520 Series is priced as follows, based on 1,000-unit quantities: 60GB for $149, 120GB at $229, 180GB at $369, 240GB at $509 and 480GB at $999.

It comes with a 5-year limited warranty." - via storagenewsletter.com

Intel is always on the cutting edge of technology and their new 520 series is no different. Their new 520 series is offered in 60GB for $149, 120GB at $229, 180GB at $369, 240GB at $509 and 480GB at $999. Perfect for anyone wanting to make the switch to SSDS or a company making the major change over to flash memory. Let us know what you think about Intel's new SSD series. 





Monday, February 06, 2012

Icy News: OCZ Nearly Doubling Random Write IO/s

"For Octane SATA 3.0 SSDs
OCZ Technology Group, Inc. announced the release of enhanced IOPS firmware (v1.13) for the Octane SATA 3.0 Series SSDs. 

The random write performance has been improved, in some capacities over double that of the previous specifications, for users looking to push their SSD performance.

For all Octane SATA 6Gb/s models, the improved IOPS made possible by this new firmware allow for greater transactional performance, especially during small file and random access speeds in everyday computing applications. 

When compared to the previous revision, random write IOPS performance doubles across nearly all capacities when tested in Iometer 2008:

Model/Old Random Write 4K IOPS (FW v1.12)/
New Random Write 4K IOPS (FW v1.13)
  • Octane 128GB/7,700/18,000
  • Octane 256GB/12,000/25,000
  • Octane 512GB/16,000/26,000
The enhanced IOPS firmware will begin shipping in the next batch of drives to resellers, and the upgrade file will be made available to existing customers via the company's website." -via Storagenewsletter

The doubling in IOPS is not very surprising now (however, still very impressive), with the way the SSD market has been growing. What we would like to see is the capacity be researched to be increased in a cheap way. If you have the means to spend money on buying multiple SSD's to use as storage drives, then it's not a problem. But, the rest of the consumer world is waiting until this happens as it may be difficult to move SSD's because of the price.

Let us know what you think!

Friday, February 03, 2012

Icy News: Transcend SSD720 SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD Announced


"Transcend Information has announced the launch of its new, next generation SSD720 SATA III 6GB/s SSD. The SSD720 delivers significantly improved performance over standard rotating hard drives and its focus on productivity-enhancement is the ideal solution for demanding system applications, such as specialized multimedia computing and serious gaming...Built-in wear-levelling and Error Correction Code (ECC) help ensure reliable data transfer to further increase the lifespan of the SSD720. In addition, it fully supports the S.M.A.R.T. command, which helps detect possible hard drive failures before they occur." -via Storagereivew
It seems like every six months, a new generation of some technology comes by. The spec sheet of Transcend's new SSD seems to be pretty beefy to say the least. You add some of the newest technologies an, while making it backwards compatible is a great way to improve on a product. Even with all these great features, the price always still matters for most users. The age old question still remains: Will you buy now, or wait until the technology is even cheaper? Let us know what you think!

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Introducing the ICY DOCK Partner Kit Page

Untitled Document
ICY DOCK Partner Kit
Icy Dock is proud to introduce our new ICY DOCK partner kit. This new feature on our website provides a quick way for our customers to obtain information including Account Setup Forms, Product Catalogs, Logos and Product Information Charts. The product selection guide is a way for our clients to quickly find products targeted for their application. The product selection guide is separated into three sections for our three types of clients: Consumers, Professional and System Integrators. Each selection features handpicked products specialized and designed for each type of client. Each product selected for each client has a quick link to each products image, manual and FAQs.
Partner Kit Tour:
ICY DOCK Product Selection Guide By Application
ICY DOCK - CREMAX USA CORP.
1307 John Reed Ct. City of Industry CA 91745
Tel: 626.956.8800
Fax: 626.956.8811
www.ICYDOCK.com
Support: tech@icydock.com
Sales: sales01@icydock.com

Icy News: Seagate expects flood-related hard drive shortages to continue



Seagate took some time out from its busy earnings reporting schedule to address supply concerns stemming from the recent devastating floods in Thailand. The storage manufacturer announced that hard drives supply will likely fall 150 million units short of demand by year's end. While Seagate's own factories weren't directly hit, suppliers for the company were impacted -- as were competitors, like Western Digital. The events have also had a more positive impact on Seagate, however -- as a result of the floods, a number of large buyers have entered into long-term agreements, according to the company." -via engadget.com

It has been a while since we have heard any updates on the hard drive flood shortage. It still seems that hard drive manufactures are still having trouble keeping up with the demand due to the shortage in parts. Seagate is going to fall 150 millions units short due to the floods this year. Let us know what you think about this shortage and if it has affected you in buying new hard drives.