ICY DOCK MB561US-4S-1 Quad Bay External Enclosure Review

ICY DOCK MB561US-4S-1 Quad Bay External Enclosure rated 100% KICKASS by 3dGameMan.com

Video Review #1144 Summary

Sponsored by: ICY DOCK
Review category: Hard Drives
Manufacturer info: More info

There are lots of external enclosures on the market, but most are single drive enclosures. This can be limiting, especially if more storage in one unit in required. The ICY DOCK MB561US-4S-1 Quad Bay External Enclosure gives you the ability to attach up to four 2TB 3.5" SATA HDDs. It very stylish with an aluminum casing, 80mm fan to keep the HDDs cool as well as USB2 & eSATA connections.

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Thu, 07/08/2010 - 12:46

Anonymous

Hi, I watched your review and read the posts, but I'm having an issue with installation that doesn't seem to be covered and I was wondering if you could help me or point me in a direction to find help.

I had (and managed to break)a two-bay Icy Dock, and when it broke decided to upgrade to the MB561US-4S-1 only to find that drives I'd used in the older Icy Dock aren't recognized by the MB561US-4S-1. I figured out half the problem, that two of the drives had IDE connections and it didn't occur to me to filter for that, but even the two newer Hitachi SATA Deskstars which mount just fine in the device never get recognized. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but I'm banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what and the instruction guide (like with my previous Icy Dock device) is almost comically slight (the english part would fit on a post-it note).

Am I missing something like that I have to have all four bays full for it to recognize the two drives I'm using? I've read that if you're using the SATA connection (I'm not) I'd need to have a multiplier installed, but I'm assuming that because I'm using the USB connection I don't have to. There's also a slight wrinkle that I'm using a USB 3.0 port, but that's supposed to be backwards-compatable, so I sorta ruled that out as a factor. Any suggestions?

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 14:18

Velkar

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Other then Rodney Reynolds who needs 8tb of storage.

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Thu, 04/22/2010 - 01:58

Anonymous

Hey folks,quick question: will this support 2 Velociraptors in RAID 0 ?

also, Great site Rodney, will register ASAP.
I've been watching everything you posted on youtube for at least 4 years.

This is a 100% kickass site. :)

Thu, 04/22/2010 - 11:57

3dGameMan

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Hello Anonymous person ;) (please register),

No, not two HDD in the same unit since it doesn't have RAID functionality built in.

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Mon, 04/12/2010 - 21:11

pcgaming101guy

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I love this review and this enclosure, because I'm in the market for a external storage. I do a lot of downloading, i download on average 200GB per month of games, tv shows, music, videos and I'm running out of space. Call me crazy, but i just love doing it since its easy with 25mb/s Internet. My problem has always been that i need a device that can hold many hard drives in and to see that this one has four of them really impressive, but that fact that you can't put them in raid configuration is really discouraging. I presently have 2 bay external inclosure with 2 x 2TB hard drives in a raid 0 configuration and my computer has the same internally 2x 1TB in raid 0 and believe it or not all that space of 6TB is almost full. I was just wondering if there was an enclosure out on the market, with 4 bay or more for hard drives that accepts raid configurations.

Thanks again 3dGameMan and love your reviews watch them daily :)

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Mon, 04/12/2010 - 03:19

TrAnWhiZ

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Posts: 6

Hey, why not to show how to mount the HDD? and how heavy is this compared to other cages?

Sun, 04/18/2010 - 20:04

3dGameMan

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Mainly because it very straight forward. Just mount the HDD in the tray and slide the tray into the enclosure.

Not heavy at all, certainly no heavier than any other enclosure :)

Sat, 04/10/2010 - 00:42

Anonymous

Dude love every review and Q & A you do, I'm in south africa and though the stuff you review will only be here by me long after you review them, I can get the bottom line before I import.

Sat, 04/10/2010 - 09:42

3dGameMan

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Thanks. You should consider registering here so we all know who you are :) It just makes it easier you you and us to interact.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 20:44

#10

erickerensky@gm...

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really it should have USB3 which would be much faster then eSATA

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Tue, 06/22/2010 - 10:39

#11

Anonymous

USB3 many people love USB3! but remember it use a lot of CPU power! unlike eSATA.

Fri, 04/09/2010 - 01:07

#12

Anonymous

That is exactly what i thought!
Realy new products should have?

Fri, 04/09/2010 - 13:13

#13

3dGameMan

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While all products will eventually be USB3 and SATA III compatible, that's a little ways off yet.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 15:35

#14

Anonymous

thanks for the fine review.

If i may add, i think it's ashame that a bunch of rifrafs made you decide to "move" your reviews to another website.

Anyhow, thanks a lot for your continious efforts to provide us with the best hardware reviews possible.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 14:06

#15

Tiv

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Posts: 3584

It's not a NAS, but adding a network cable would have been a good option. I think anyone that is in the storage business today needs to look at NAS seriously because it's the new hotness.

I like the removable fan on the back.

Found this picture while surfing Google. I guess using a the right router can make any USB external drive into a NAS. So perhaps a network port is not needed, but still, we love our options..lol

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Thu, 04/08/2010 - 12:00

#16

Anonymous

Just get a OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 4-Bay RAID 0/1/5/10 eSATA, FireWire 400/800, USB2 Desktop Removable Bay Storage Solution - up to 8.0TB

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 11:58

#17

Anonymous

Cool, I don't mind that you put your videos here!

But this enclosure is a bit naff in a way. All running through one sata connection. I think I will stick with the individual hard drive enclosures.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 11:43

#18

icy_roland

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Posts: 1

First off, great review! Love the video, too. We don't have a lot of video reviews, so this is very awesome!

I will try to touch on a few things mentioned from the comments so far....

RAID: Using this as a RAID system would be fairly easily. For eSATA use a port multiplier PCI E card is required, so one could just grab a PM card with built in RAID functions. The most popular is usually RAID 5, but we have some users with all 4 drives in RAID 0.

Temperature: As mentioned, the drives stay within acceptable ranges even in intense applications like video editing. The reason they might be just above the range of a single drive is because you have multiple drives running at the same time and in close proximity, so of course there may be a little bit of extra heat. The great thing about this new version is the speed control, especially the auto function. The aluminum construction of the device also helps immensely with heat dissipation.

eSATA: Again, as 3DGameMan mentioned, eSATA will give 2x-3x the speed of USB 2.0, depending on the drive. And even if the drives are all set to run in RAID 0, you are still hovering right around the max throughput of a single eSATA connection (3 Gb/sec).

Mac: Yes, this will work with Mac systems. For Mac Pros you will need a PCI E card with eSATA port multiplier, and make sure the drivers are compatible with your version of OSX. For a Macbook Pro, you will need an Expresscard with eSATA port multiplier, and again, make sure it has drivers for your version of OSX. If the card you choose uses a Silicon Image chipset, they are very good about keeping their drivers up to date. Plus, it is the chipset used inside the device. A perfect match!

Cheers,

Roland, Team Icy Dock

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Thu, 04/08/2010 - 12:19

#19

3dGameMan

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Thanks for spotting in and answering questions. It's very nice to see companies doing this :)

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 10:08

#20

Anonymous

What type of RAID levels it provide?

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 10:12

#21

3dGameMan

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Well, this is in essence a HDD enclosure for the most part, but you could possibly RAID a number of the together. I haven't tried this, but it should be possible.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 10:30

#22

Anonymous

I don't think there would be any performance gain, since all the drives are on one SATA cable.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 09:57

#23

Anonymous

Sorry rod, i really like all your video's but this is kinda ignoying, having to go here to watch your vid, you can also post 'em on both websites?

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 10:07

#24

3dGameMan

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Might be annoying for some, but my main focus now will be on 3dGameMan.com, not YouTube. This means releasing video videos on my own site first. I certainly don't believe that this is in an way unreasonable. Without interest in the 3dGameMan.com site there's no way I could ever continue producing videos/video reviews.

Please remember though that all videos reviews will eventually be up uploaded to YouTube, at least for now. But if you want to see it first, pop over here and get involved :)

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 09:52

#25

Anonymous

to bad that it doesn't have a LAN jack on it

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 09:54

#26

3dGameMan

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True, but that would make is a Network Attached Storage device, which certainly won't be a bad thing.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 09:46

#27

Anonymous

Nice dock, nice that you can remove the fan. If it was lower priced i would buy it. The "pulling the cool air" was bit of nonsense. It just pulls out the warm air that is heated up when the hard drives are running.

Greetings, icebreaker :)

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 08:02

#28

Anonymous

temperatures are not too high?

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 08:47

#29

3dGameMan

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I added temperature information in the video review, but temps are very acceptable, between 48-50c. Remember, your typical 3.5" HDD normally sit between 35-45c when in a computer case, depending on the room temp, case cooling and HDD.

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 07:45

#30

Tunguska

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are we pose to comment here or on facebook for the contest

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Thu, 04/08/2010 - 08:42

#31

3dGameMan

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Should be commenting here because this is were I hang out ;)

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 06:52

#32

Anonymous

Vimeo!?
You hurt by Youtube?

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:37

#33

WEGGLES

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Posts: 14

Also you may want to update the model number, the ICY DOCK MB561US-4S is the old model with out USB/Fan control the model you have is the ICY DOCK MB561US-4S-1

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:40

#34

3dGameMan

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Yea, that's correct, but the series is based on the MB561US-4S, so that's what I used.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:33

#35

WEGGLES

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How fast is eSata compared to USB? I have 2 External 1TB drives, one for usage, one for back-up and this would be useful for backing up as I could just rack in the drive instead of hunting for the power cord and the USB cord that came with the external I'm using for back up. If eSata is significantly faster than USB I may consider getting this.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:38

#36

3dGameMan

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Depending on the drive, eSATA is 2-3x+ as fast as USB2.

I did USB2 and eSATA benchmarks in the video so you could see the differences in performance. To give you some idea, USB2 = 33MB/s, eSATA = 90MB/s. But refer to the video for all the results.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:44

#37

WEGGLES

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Oh shoot. Missed that when I began looking up prices as the video was going.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 18:27

#38

Lvaneede

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Posts: 186

So even though it only has one esata/usb connection, the computer detects all 4 hard drives separately? If it does, this would probably be very useful for me at work (computer repair shop).

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Wed, 04/07/2010 - 20:12

#39

3dGameMan

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Yes, that's correct. So for example, if you have 4 HDDs, the OS will see it as 4 separate drives.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 20:37

#40

Anonymous

Does this work for Macinotsh computers?

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 21:34

#41

3dGameMan

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I haven't tested it on a MAC, but it's supposed to work on Mac OS 9.0 or higher.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 15:12

#42

Dan9550

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mmm that would be great for backup

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 10:35

#43

Danny Lim

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Posts: 129

I could use that for back up files. :)

Or maybe for recovering deleted files just incase if I accidently deleted my current files on my computer

Pretty useful I guess.

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Wed, 04/07/2010 - 08:04

#44

tintii

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no more vimeo? :)

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 08:14

#45

3dGameMan

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I'll use YouTube for most videos, but the main video review will be posted here first. I'll still upload my video reviews on YouTube, but it will be a few days after I release it here.

I hope to have the video review on this product produced later today.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 08:00

#46

Anonymous

would be cool if it could do raid with 4 drives :D

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 08:05

#47

3dGameMan

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Yea... I was thinking the same thing, but it's only meant for a multi-bay external storage solution.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 12:04

#48

bass2k8

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Can you do a Q&A video explaining the different hard drive configurations because i dont quite understand what raid is. Thanks :)

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Wed, 04/07/2010 - 12:23

#49

3dGameMan

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This should help: http://www.3dgameman.com/q-and-a/41/best-raid-setup-gaming-computer

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 07:52

#50

wackomann

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Posts: 8

Wow that looks so great! May have to get one.

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