At first we would like to thank ICY DOCK for offering us a sample of the ExpressCage MB326SP-B for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About ICY DOCK:

 

“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 Taipei, ICY DOCK became a global peripheral enclosure provider with utilizing their manufacturing facility located in Shenzhen 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.”

 

Product Features:

 

Supports up to 6 x 2.5" SATA/SAS HDD/SSD into a single 5.25" bay

Support SATA 6Gbps or SAS single channel (requires SAS host)

Hot-swappable bays for quick drive installation

Accommodates 2.5" drives with 5mm, 7mm & 9.5mm height

Active Power Technology (APT) - only powers up if there is drive installed in the drive bay

Removable ExpressTray system for tool-less, easy installation comparable to tray-less designs

Optional bottom mounted screw holes for increased stability

Blue indicator LED provided for each bay Dual 40mm fan for drive cooling

3 pin fan headers to support many aftermarket fan upgrades

2 x 15pin SATA power connection powers all 6 drives

Locking latch design for both 7 pin SATA connector and 15 pin power adapter

Fan speed control for HIGH, LOW, and AUTO (smart cooling) settings

Metal case with heavy duty ABS tray and door latch

Designed for power users and system builder applications, mainly space saving and hot swap usage and for 2.5” HDD or SSD

 

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

 

In this article, we will concentrate our attention on another interesting product from ICY DOCK, and to be more exact the ExpressCage MB326SP-B, which is able to offer installation and hot-swap of no less than six 2.5’’ drives, while using a single 5.25’’ bay! Since we are talking about so many drives in a relatively small amount of space, the manufacturer is also using active cooling. Let’s dig in and see what ICY DOCK has prepared for us! The ExpressCage MB326SP-B is shipped inside a simple cardboard enclosure, with a drawing of the product on top, along with some small pictograms, which do show some of the main product highlights:

 

 

 

The airflow direction is shown on the side of the box:

 

 

 

The opposite area does explain that we are dealing again with a hassle-free tool-less 2.5’’ HDD/SSD installation procedure:

 

 

 

The more in-depth technical specifications can be spotted on the back side of the box:

 

 

 

Inside, we will find the main product, which is wrapped inside a transparent bubble-bag, so it won’t get damaged during transit:

 

 

 

Besides that, we are receiving screws for mounting the device inside the computer case, optional screws for the drives, but also an installation manual:

 

 

 

The manual does not only show the drive installation but also how to connect the cables in the back, along with the fan switch adjustment:

 

 

 

As we have seen with the other units, we are dealing with an all-black aluminum chassis, which does have a ventilation grill on the top area:

 

 

 

The lateral sides of the product do have some extra openings, but here we can also observe the mounts for the screws:

 

 

 

 

In the front, we can clearly observe the six drive bays, with pre-installed plastic trays:

 

 

 

The tray doors can be opened for ejection by simply pressing the button located on the right side:

 

 

 

Each tray does have a ventilation tray of its own and the drive installation is pretty self-explanatory; we do have two small pins in the frontal area of the tray, which do keep the HDD/SSD in place:

 

 

 

 

For even more stability, we can install the provided screws in the remaining two orifices of the back of the tray; one extra element that can be seen on the back of the trays is the Plexiglas that helps driving the drive activity LED from the daughter-board of the ExpressCage MB326SP-B to the front:

 

 

 

Drive installation should only take a few seconds of our time:

 

 

 

Let’s take now a closer look at the back of the unit; we can clearly spot the dual 40mm fan configuration, each which is meant to cool three drives:

 

 

A single SATA Power connector powers a group of three drives, while each drive bay comes with its own SATA Data connector. In the middle area, we do also have the fan ports, which is telling us that we can replace the current models with any other brands we’d like:

 

 

The ExpressCage MB326SP-B comes equipped with RUNDA Electronics RS4010S12M DC fans, which are rated 12V at 0.09A:

 

 

On the right side, we’ve got a small switch, which is able two work with three fan speed configurations (High, Low, Auto). The Auto setting does monitor the drive temperatures and adjusts the fan speeds accordingly:

 

 

Thanks to the all-black appearance, the ExpressCage MB326SP-B fits very well with many modern cases:

 

 

The Soft-Blue LEDs do help us find out the status of each drive:

 

 

Are you working in an environment that does imply drive switching and/or hot-swapping on a daily manner such as digital forensics, drive recovery, drive testing for performance, virus scans, data cloning and more? ICY DOCK has another interesting solution named ExpressCage MB326SP-B that does come with active cooling and can fit no less than six 2.5’’ drives in a 5.25’’ bay. For even more compatibility, we can use drives with 5mm, 7mm & 9.5mm height, while the back 40mm fans can be easily replaced with other models, thanks to the included 3-pin power connectors.

 

The available drive tray locking latches have a similar construction to the one which can be found with NASes, while the activity LEDs are handy for finding out the drive status in each of the available bays.

 

If your current system build does come with a really silent setup, the stock fans of the ExpressCage MB326SP-B may be heard (a higher pitch noise) and this is basically the only negative aspect we could find regarding this specific product.

 

The Icy Dock ExpressCage MB326SP-B can be purchased online for about 50 Euros.

For those shopping on Amazon, here is the direct LINK.

ICY DOCK ExpressCage MB326SP-B is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank ICY DOCK for making this review possible!