Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Convert your ODD/FDD Slot with ToughArmor MB411SPO-B 2.5" Hot-Swappable Enclosure

The ToughArmor MB411SPO-B is designed amazingly slim and able to keep its size as small as 2.5” HDD, which makes it a complete space saver for any enterprise systems. This small form factor design allows MB411SPO-B to fit in any system that has tight space constraints such as mobile computers and embedded systems. It is also a great 2.5” mobile rack for any OEM / ODM systems that have space limitation, as system builders can easily configured their storage needs with MB411SPO-B, without wasting unnecessary space from the system.

Product Page: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=213


Monday, March 21, 2016

ICY Concept: How to increase work efficiency by adding high performance RAID data protection to small business desktop computers, servers or workstations?

Data redundancy is important for a small business because drive failure does happen quiet often. Using RAID as data redundancy provides a fail-safe against hardware failure. Imagine the impact if you lost a day’s data, a week’s data, a year’s data due to hard drive failure. What would happen? How could you recover?

Many of the small business desktop computers are not equipped with RAID protection. These systems may offer simple RAID option on their motherboard, but it is not as reliable as standalone RAID protection device. However, it’s not an easy task to setup your own RAID system: First, you need available PCI-E slot for RAID controller card. Second, these controller cards are quiet costly. Therefore, at ICY DOCK we introduced the MB992SKR-B full metal dual bay RAID 2.5” SATA HDD & SSD mobile rack. It allows you to effortlessly add a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) option to your enterprise desktop computers without adding an additional RAID controller card. The MB992SKR-B fits 2 x 2.5” hard drive or SSD into a single 3.5” front device bay and it has a built-in high performance hardware RAID chipset. To add RAID protection to your system, simply insert 2 x 2.5” SATA hard drive or Solid State Drive to the MB992SKR-B and then connect the MB992SKR-B to the SATA port of your motherboard and then secure the MB992SKR-B onto the 3.5” front device bay and you are ready to go. The MB992SKR-B provides RAID 0 (stripping), RAID 1 (mirroring), BIG and JBOD modes, with hot-swap tray design and full metal body. The ToughArmor MB992SKR-B is an ideal storage device for any small business computers, SMB servers and enterprise workstation systems.


MB992SKR-B Product Page: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=211

ICY Concept: Upgrade your single or dual bay mobile rack system to the ICY DOCK MB993SK-B triple bay, full metal 2.5” SATA HDD/SSD cage

SSDs are clearly better than HDDs when it comes to performance. Since SSDs have become cheaper over the past few years and now 7mm height 2.5” SSD has reached 2TB storage capacity, it is quite possible that Solid-State-Drives may soon replace the traditional Hard-Disk-Drives.

If you are using a single or dual bay 2.5” mobile rack in your computer systems, it is a no brainer that you should, instead, go with ICY DOCK MB993SK-B triple bay full metal 2.5” HDD/SSD cage! The MB993SK-B fits 3 x 2.5” 7mm height SSD/HDD, occupies a single 3.5” front device bay only and allows you to squeeze up to total 6TB storage capacity without taking too much physical space from your system. All of this while retaining an easy to access cage for your drives that allows for easy drive swaps.

This is a perfect device for high-end computers and enterprise systems such as Gaming PCs, Image Processing Workstations, Industrial-PCs (IPC), mobile DVRs, mobile computers, embedded systems and other Small-Form-Factor (SFF) systems.





Available 2 TB SSDs in 7mm height
Samsung 850 EVO 2TB
Samsung 850 PRO 2 TB
CUK Cyclone 2 TB
EluKTronics 2 TB
Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2TB

Available 1.6TB SSDs in 7mm height
Intel DC S3610 1.6TB
Intel DC S3500 1.6TB

Available 1TB - 1.2TB SSDs in 7mm height 
Intel DC S3710 1.2TB Crucial MX200 1TB

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

ICY DOCK ToughArmor MB993SK-B Triple Bay 2.5" SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Mobile Rack for 3.5" Front Bay Video

Utilizing its small form factor, The MB99SK-B is perfect for use in industrial PCs, SMB SFF servers, mobile DVR systems, or even home servers. The ability to house 3 x SATA SSD or HDD in a single 3.5” front device bay makes it a valuable asset, as several different configurations can be implemented. With three drives, users can access all drives individually, making a perfect solution for systems that are constantly swapping between multiple OS drives or simply for storage in a small space. Moreover, in a system with three drives, it is ideal to have RAID 5 setup to achieve its fast performance along with data protection or use two drives for RAID 1 mirror data-protection and RAID 0 for doubling the transfer speed. The remaining third drive can be assigned as stationary OS drive or an extra hot-swappable bay. To keep cables from cluttering, a single SATA 4 power pin is used to ease installation. Save as much as space while maintaining the speed and maximizing the functionalities in a limited space, which is the beauty of the MB993SK-B.


Key Features:

 - Suggested applications in medical & military systems, government agencies, Industrial PC, SMB workstation, VM workstation, mobile DVR system, aerospace computer, automation system and embedded system.
 - Full Metal construction, perfect for rugged applications and complies with flammability requirement
 - Fits 3 x 7mm 2.5” SATA HDD or SSD in a 3.5” floppy drive bay.
 - Supports SAS or SATA HDD/SSD at 6Gbps and is backwards compatible with SATA 3Gbps drives and hosts (SAS host is required for SAS drives - Single SAS channel
 - ndividual LED indicators
 - Multi-Flow Technology (MFT) - provides excellent passive cooling.
 - Anti-Vibration Technology (AVT) - creates a safe environment for hard drives or SSD
 - Active Power Technology (APT) - individual led only powers up if there is drive installed in each bay.
 - EMI Grounding – protects hard drives from electrical damage.
 - Eagle-hook lock system & 2-segment safeguard key lock keeps drives secure within the enclosure.
 - EMI Grounding – protects hard drives from electrical damage.
 - Removable tray system for easy maintenance.
 - Supports SATA 6Gbps and hot swap.
 - Single floppy 4 Pin to power entire device.
 - Supports SAS and SATA power cables with locking latch design
 - Limited 3 year warranty to complement the typical warranty of a hard drive.


Product Page: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=220
'Like' Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/icydockusa
ICY Community Forum - http://www.icydockforums.com/

Monday, March 14, 2016

ToughArmor MB998SP-B & MB991U3-1SB review by Overclock.net

MB998SP-B: It's 8-way bay day

 IcyDock has a wide lineup of hard drive accessories from the enthusiast-level ExpressCage series to the enterprise-oriented ToughArmor series. I’ve been reviewing the latter for years now and have been able to see the lineup mature from only a few units to a whole host of sizes and capacities. Today I have two units for review: the new flagship MB998SP-B (http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=192) and an entry into the external storage accessories with the MB991U3-1SB (http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=188).


Device Overview and First Impressions

MB991U3-1SB

IcyDock’s external 2.5” USB3.0 solution targets the portable drive market. While it’s certainly larger and heavier than Vantec and Rosewill enclosures, it doesn’t require an external power source like the IcyDock Blizzard 3.5” drive enclosure. It also sports a Kensington lock slot if you're worried about the enclosure walking off, which is nice.


MB998SP-B


Back in 2012 when I first started reviewing IcyDock’s ToughArmor lineup, the MB994SP-1 was the big dog -- sporting a total of four 2.5” devices in a single 5.25” slot. However, in 2013 IcyDock launched an even beefier 6-unit model the MB996SP-6SB. And now we have the MB998SP-B to take the crown once again.

Read full review on Overclock.net

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

ICY DOCK ToughArmor MB993SK-B Product Review - 9.5 Rating!

  Today we have another Icy Dock product to look at, a triple bay 2.5” SAS/SATA HDD & SSD Mobile Rack for 3.5” front device bays called the Icy Dock MB993SK-B. At STH we have taken a look at several Icy Dock products with our latest review showing the Icy Dock ToughArmor EX MB491SKL-B. The Icy Dock ToughArmor MB993SK-B is perfect for cases that have an external 3.5″ bay that would otherwise sit idle, converting the bay to hold three 2.5″ SSDs. We do not see many rackmount servers with these slots anymore but there are a large number of workstation cases still out there that have provisions for an adapter like this. If your case has an 3.5″ knock out you can add the ToughArmor MB993SK-B Triple Bay 2.5” and install three SSD’s and RAID them up for a nice storage addition to your workstation....Read full article