ICY DOCK ToughArmor MB998SP-B Full Metal 8-Bay 2.5" SAS/SATA HDD/SSD Mobile Rack Enclosure for 5.25" Drive Bay | High-Speed Data Transfer | Perfect for Server Storage, Data Backup & Media Editing Workstations

ICY DOCK Full Metal 6 x SSDThis thing is built like a tank. I was surprised how heavy the package was when I picked it up. It feels very industrial. I ran out of space in my PC so this product was perfect. I also added a PCIe SATA adapter so I could add more drives to my case. This really cleans up the case too and keeps all the drives and wires in one compact area. I like the subtle green lights instead of the blaring blue LED's everything else seems to have these days.I almost bought the cheaper plastic version of this, but I'm glad I spent the extra money and got the metal version. This should last a very long time.Make sure you put all the wires on first before installing it in your case, otherwise you'll never get them all on later. The screw holes were off a tad, or maybe it was my case. The nature of metal is it doesn't want to flex the way you want it. Might have to put some muscle into it a bit to get it exactly lined up. The case screws they give you are vey short so they won't go into the SSD's. But the back ones don't need to be short, they didn't quite reach, but luckily I had some longer ones for the back so I used those. I also wish the SATA power was a tad closer together, my inline connectors on the wire wouldn't quite reach using the first and second connector, so I had to skip one of the them, so it took a 3 connector wire with only two of the connectors being used, the first and last connector with one in the middle not being used. Perhaps mine are just shorter, I don't know. It's not a big deal though. It's great that I only need two SATA power connectors though for 6 drives.Since I'm using SSD's that don't get very hot I removed the fan.This thing cost twice as much as my entire case, but it's well worth it. I feel like you get your money worth. I wish optical drive bay cases were more popular, the extra drive bays are so handy for products like this. If you're going to buy a case do yourself a favor and get one with some 5.25 inch bays. There are so many great products to use in them.Works like a charm. Solid metal design, good airflow above and below for each slot, and a single power connector for all four (separate SATA data cables, one sata-power cable).Being me, I took the thing apart. Five screws and the backplane comes off, one more and its circuit board can be taken out and examined. Totally trivial, very well seated and secured... notches into the frame... zero wiggle room (good!). I counted 9 capacitors on the power distribution bus so they didn't cut any corners there. Inserting an HDD did not glitch the power for the other drives that were already in. I give the backplane a big thumbs up for design and engineering.The drive bays are solid. Considering that we are cramming four 2.5" drives into a 5.25" enclosure, the design is very good. The bottom of each bay drops out a little to give the bottom of the drive a little space. The areas near the screw holes are flush, though, but it didn't seem to have any issues mounting the seagate HDDs I had without a plastic protector (clearance on the HDD drive mounts is about 1mm to the drive's circuit board).It is not screwless... requires four screws (flatheads are included). Two are round holes, two are oval. Not sure why they didn't use round for all four but the two round holes are near the connector side so the drive's connector is guaranteed to be properly aligned. Easycakes, and honestly you only need to use two screws (in the round holes nearest the connector) anyway.The fan is the only downside, being small and noisy, but I still give the device 5 stars for several reasons. First, they included a fan control switch (OFF, LOW, HIGH settings). Second, airflow looks good for all four slots. In terms of the fan control, no point ever using 'HIGH'. Just use LOW or OFF. The LOW setting is definitely audible which is unfortunate but there isn't a whole lot of room on the design side considering the fan has to fit the height. On the plus side, not only is there an 'OFF' position (if you have SSDs, you don't need the fan), but if the case itself has good airflow you can physically remove the fan with two simple screws to open it up and allow the case airflow to handle any cooling requirements. The fan's power able goes to a connector and just pulls off, so its easy to remove.In fact, if you really wanted to and didn't want the hot-swap, you could unscrew the whole backplane and just use it as four permanent slots. Silly I know, but the case is so well engineered that it has that flexibility if you wanted it.Fan tests, Four 1TB Seagate HDDs. Writing mean all four drives writing continuously for 20 minutes or so. Temperatures taken using SMART info (all four returned the same temp within +/- 1C): idle, low fan: 26C Idle, no fan: 27C (i.e. PC case fan only, no direct airflow) writing, high fan: 38C writing, low fan: 41C writing, no fan: 47C (i.e. PC case fan only, no direct airflow)So with all those features and easy modding, ICY gets 5 stars.ADDENDUM - I had one issue with the dock. On one of the machines I used longer screws to mount the dock in the bay. They turned out to be too long and infringed on the tray area, causing damage to one of the trays which I didn't realize until I tried to pull the tray out and couldn't. This was my own fault. So remember to use the low-profile screws that come with the unit... or at least make sure they don't infringe the bays.ADDENDUM2 - If you purchase your own 40mm fan you may not be able to use the LOW setting. Depending on the fan, it might not startup unless you use the HIGH setting. I still definitely recommend purchasing your own low-noise 40mm fan and not using the cheap noisy one that comes with the unit. You don't need much airflow to cool HDDs (and don't need any at all for SSDs), so find the quietest 40mm fan you can and you will be a happy camper.The only downside to the unit is having to screw the drives into the hot-swap trays... in particular, losing the screws for the trays you aren't using atm. I recommend storing the unused screws in their plastic bag IN one of the unused trays.-MattI used this bay expander to add another four drives to my main PC. I had a number of 2.5" drives lying around, and with the purchase of a new PC I thought I should do something with them. Fitting the bay was easy, it slid straight into a vacant 5.25" single-height bay in the case. A single SATA power cable supplies all four drives. Each drive requires its own data cable. If you don't have enough free SATA ports on your motherboard you'll have to buy a SATA expansion card. It took only moments to fit the drives into the removable caddies, and the caddies slot into the front of the rack. It took less than 30 minutes from opening the box to booting the PC, now with an extra 12TB of storage. The rack was chosen specifically for its all-metal construction and that it could take 2.5" drives up to 15mm thick - I needed this as two of the drives were 4TB fat drives. I don't need the hot-swap function, so I haven't tested this aspect. Should be good for a RAID array though. This isn't a cheap solution, but it is a good solution that should last. Recommended.The product works very well and protects the hard drives when swapping them out. The drive cages offer great physical protection and hides the rear drive connectors preventing the possibility of electrostatic discharge from careless fingers. The locking mechanism is sturdy, precise and reliable. I assume you could swap in and out the drive many thousands of times without any problems. The only issue is the loud noise from the fans and high air throughput. The loud noise is extremely distracting in a home environment and will dominate. Also, the air throughput rate is large and will cause dust build up after a few months. The product is intended for an enterprise environment in a closed room. However, there is a workaround - you can easily disconnect and remove both fans to make this silent, and my SSDs have never gone above 35C even under heavy work load. This will obviously void your warranty and is done at your own risk, but after a year I couldn't take the noise anymore. Another option would be to replace the fans with silent ones purchased online.This is well made and feels sturdy. My Corsair case didn't require the use of screws to it in place so installation was quick and easy.The reason for four stars instead of five is because you still have to screw your SSD's into their sleds so it's a bit finicky and not as quick as I'd like to get a single SSD mounted in the system. It means if you want to swap out a drive in a sled you'll need a screwdriver. Also, if you have multiple Windows installations on different disks and you only want one to be visible you'll need to unmount the others it in the system settings or pop the sled out, leaving a gap. I would have preferred a tool free design for the sleds so this process was simpler. Another solution is to leave one or two SATA ports unconnected so the drives aren't active when placed those particular compartments. If you don't need all 4 ports this is an option and keeps everything together and looking tidy. It is somewhat of a clumsy and wasteful solution.All of that said though, this does a good job of making access to your system 2.5" drives more accessible and makes for a tidier case. The sleds slot in easily with a reassuring click and a green LED shows once they're pushed in and the system is on. I will be buying another one for my other system. I have my fan turned off because I use SSDs and only have a couple installed.Unfortunately took me too many months to get around to actually fitting this device otherwise I would have returned it. The concept is really good, the price is reasonable. There are two reasons for knocking off three stars:1) You need ultra short mounting screws to fit this drive cage into a drive bay (I'm talking 1 or 2mm long). Regular length screws (once tightened) protrude too far into the case which then catches on the drive cages so you are unable to insert or remove the individual drive cages properly!2) I have been using the icy dock for less than a month now and the fans in the unit have started to make an appalling grindy/buzzy noise.Fortunately (?!?) the unit disassembles quite easily so I will be able to replace the two 40x40x10mm 12V fans, however, I was not expecting to carry out such an operation after only a month. If I could I'd add half a star back on for the ease with which the unit comes apart (and goes back together). Just a matter of removing 4 screws (2 either side of the case) and the fans and SATA connectors come out easily . A simple but effective design.This easily fit in a 5.25 bay. Full metal construction looks nice and sturdy. Quite a bit of height for each 2.5 drive, would easily fit thick drives.Drive connection was easy and immediately worked with Windows. Hot-swap seems to work but I didn't give that much testing as that's not how I intend to use it.