Icy Dock MB122 & MB452 Enclosures

Performance:

For testing the Icy Dock MB122 and MB452, we had used a Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA drive. The test system consisted of a dual Intel Xeon 5150 Woodcrest server with 2GB of RAM and was running Fedora Core 5 with the Linux 2.6.17 kernel. While booting up the system, we were interested to see if we would run into any compatibility problems but luckily, the two devices seemed to operate flawlessly under Linux. Using hdparm for carrying out some basic speed tests, when the drive was lodged inside the MB122, the average read was 57.22 MB/sec while the MB452 had USB 2.0 readings of 32.17 MB/sec. When connected directly to the SATA interface on the motherboard without the enclosure, the read speeds would be approximately 60.00 MB/sec. Overall, the enclosures had performed well, and we did not run into any Linux compatibility issues with either the Icy Dock MB122 or MB452.

Conclusion:

Icy Dock was a newcomer at Phoronix, so we were not too sure what to expect when we received the MB122 and MB452 enclosures. However, upon trying out the enclosures we were quickly pleased by the products presented. Both products were very well designed and had excellent craftsmanship. We were also intrigued by the compatibility between the two enclosures with how the drives were interchangeable. The MB452 also boasts an eSATA interface, which has recently become common with some motherboards and other peripherals. The Icy Dock MB452 and MB122 are both selling for approximately $50 USD per enclosure. While the drives did get warm inside of their enclosures, for the most part both the Icy Dock MB122 and MB452 were great. It certainly will be interesting to see what other Icy Dock products launch in the future.