INTRODUCTION

   Whether you're a professional looking to expand your available storage space/pool or if you're just a consumer looking to put all your old hard disk drives to use there's but one easy way for that to happen and that's getting a multi-bay external enclosure. According to the type of user you are there are many external enclosures in the market to choose from some even with room for up to 8 drives (up to 40 if we also take into account rackmount models) and of course with various connectivity options not only including the most popular USB 3.0/3.1 Type-C but also eSATA and Thunderbolt. After having reviewed the quite unique looking Black Vortex Quad Bay HDD Enclosure (MB174U3S-4SB) by ICY DOCK today we decided to test the ICYCube Quad Bay 2.5" & 3.5" SATA External HDD Enclosure (MB561U3S-4S R1) which follows a more "established" design we've seen quite a few times in the past.

   ICY DOCK is a privately held company with more than 15 years of experience in design, manufacturing, branding and distribution of Storage enclosure peripherals. By constantly improving upon its own new product release strategy, ICY DOCK has formed a standard, yet efficient, new product development procedure to ensure timely product delivery to the market. At ICY DOCK, we constantly offer state-of-the-art hard disk enclosures and removable storage kits which feature removable drive & hot swap capabilities and eSATA / SATA connectivity. We also specialize in BTO (Built to Order) branded products, OEM-branded and non-branded products for our “Tier 1” customers. Headquartered in City of Industry, California, ICY DOCK became a global peripheral enclosure provider with utilizing their manufacturing facility located in Zhang-Zang, China since 1997. Adhering to strict ISO9001 manufacturing guidelines, ICY DOCK delivers high quality standard products at a competitive price which provides our customers with an excellent opportunity to be successful in the competitive US marketplace. As one of the leading peripheral enclosure solution providers, we will continue to commit ourselves to supplying our customers with the best performance per dollar products. “Your demand is our command” is the key to ensure our success in the business world.

   The ICYCube MB561U3S-4S R1 by ICY DOCK is a quad-bay external hard disk drive enclosure (made out of plastic and aluminum and available in white/silver and black colors) which fully supports both 2.5" (of all heights) and 3.5" SATA I/II/III drives and features both eSATA and USB 3.0 with UASP connectivity. It's also equipped with a detachable 80mm exhaust ball-bearing fan (allows for easier/faster cleaning), 3-speed fan controller (low/auto/high), 4 plastic/aluminum EZ-trays for quick swapping of the drives (unfortunately not based on a tool-less design) and white activity LEDs for each of them. Sure it may not look as unique as the Black Vortex and the 80mm fan will most likely fall short compared to the 120mm one of the first but performance is the thing people care most when out to get a multi-drive enclosure so it's time for us to check exactly that.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The main product features are listed at the front right beneath a picture containing both available product color selections.

Both the rear and front of the enclosure are showcased on both sides of the box.

Printed at the rear of the box is the specifications table.

ICY DOCK has wrapped the enclosure inside a plastic cover and placed it between two thick pieces of foam (the rest of the bundle is placed inside a cardboard box).

Along with the MB561U3S-4S R1 quad-bay enclosure you will also get its power adapter with its power cord, eSATA cable, USB 3.0 host cable, two bags with mounting screws (for 2.5" and 3.5" drives) and the user manual.

THE ICYCUBE MB561U3S-4S R1

The ICYCube MB561U3S-4S R1 weighs 2390g and measures 175mm in height, 141mm in width and 235mm in depth.

The company name is placed on both sides of the enclosure.

At the front of the enclosure we find the 4 EZ-trays and a perforated section right beneath them.

These trays are almost entirely made out of aluminum and are very sturdy (a small plastic section is placed at the front).

Even the handles which are used to secure the drives in place are made out of aluminum.

The 80mm exhaust fan placed at the rear steals the show since it's placed outside of the enclosure.

You can remove the 80mm fan to clean or replace it just by pulling upwards the clip located at its base.

At the rear we also find the DC in, on/off switch, 3-speed fan controller and the eSATA and USB 3.0 ports.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Complicating things is not really our way so once again our testing procedure will be almost identical to the one we use with external docking stations. However since we are talking about an multi-bay 3.5" external enclosures this time over we will be using one or more (depends on the mode) Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III hard disk drives since mechanical drives are obviously what people will use more with such devices (besides in quad+ enclosures these should pretty much max out the performance of the onboard controller). Our standard selection of benchmark suites is used here as well for both single and RAID 0 testing including the famous HD Tach RW (Long Bench 32mb Zones), HD Tune Pro (read/write -when possible- speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read/Write -also when possible- speeds), AIDA64 (Linear Read/Random Read), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB/1000MB read/write speeds) and finally the quite outdated yet highly reliable ATTO 2.47 (Max Read/Max Write speeds).

   Temps as usual were recorded using the latest version of Hard Disk Sentinel along with the sensors provided by AIDA64 while noise levels were recorded using our HD600 dBA meter placed just 10-15cm above each unit. Every test was repeated for a total of 6 times and after that the average (not peak) performance numbers were recorded into our graphs. As always every test was performed in a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows 10 Pro with every update installed up to March 28th 2017.

* For this review we used 4 Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III drives.
** Since March 2017 we also started recording noise levels.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

TEST RESULTS – NOISE LEVELS / TEMPERATURES

CONCLUSION

   We used the ICYCube MB561U3S-4S R1 for a total of 11 days and just by checking our charts you can see that it clearly managed to outperform most of its competition and even surpassed the very good Black Vortex quad bay enclosure again by ICY DOCK (although for the most part they traded blows). Sure it may not look as good as the Black Vortex (well at least we like it more) and the 80mm fan may not be nearly as effective or as quiet as the 120mm one featured in the Black Vortex (its perforated enclosure does play a large role in that as well so it's not just the 120mm fan) but thanks to its more "standard" design it can fit better on most desks (whereas the Black Vortex not so much). For good or bad the MB561U3S-4S R1 doesn’t offer RAID and large modes so It does fall short on that and we expect that some potential buyers will look elsewhere because of that. On the other hand however the easy removable 80mm fan with its 3-speed controller and the EZ-trays partially make up for that.

   So how much does the ICYCube MB561U3S-4S R1 cost? Well currently you can find it for USD174.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 211Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) a price tag which is almost 70% over the price of the Black Vortex. Of course the Black Vortex is a much simpler device since it has no drive trays, doesn’t support 2.5” models and the exterior is almost non-existent. Still it offers roughly the same performance levels as the ICYCube and ontop of that the 120mm fan (with the perforated enclosure) keeps the drives inside a lot colder. In the end it all comes down to what your needs are, personally I prefer the Black Vortex but I know many people who wouldn’t use it in their office because of its looks. At the end of the day the ICYCube is a good quad-bay external 2.5”/3.5” drive enclosure and that's why you should give it a chance if you're out in the market for one.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Design
- Very Good Performance
- Four 2.5/3.5” EZ Trays
- USB 3.0 & eSATA Connectivity
- Removable 80mm Exhaust Fan
- 3 Speed Fan Controller
- Available In 2 Colors

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- JBOD Mode Only
- Noise At High Speed