ICYBOX IB350 USB2.0/SATA External Hard Drive Enclosure [Archive]

Shorty

16 Jul 2004, 07:38am

The ICY BOX is an external hard drive enclosure designed to be driverless, portable and provide fast connectivity. External hard drives are very convenient but aren't as fast as the same hard drive that is connected internally and directly to a PATA or SATA header, The ICY BOX may just change that by bringing SATA connectivity to the table.

Read it here (http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=250)

Unregistered

20 Jul 2004, 09:12pm

My only problem is, I cant find where to buy one from!! Any one help? dan@citrusdesigns.co.uk

Shorty

20 Jul 2004, 09:14pm

My apologies, I shall add that to the review as the edit was lost in digital hyperspace :(

www.thecoolingshop.co.uk
www.micro-logic.com

Both will have stocks shortly :)

Unregistered

12 Aug 2004, 06:14am

[quote] The enclosure may not stay ice cool but it was certainly never hot enough to warrant any concern. The drive itself was only warm to the touch after 5 hours constant usage.

Did you by any chance monitor the SMART temperature setting? I have a Maxtor HDD which registers 5C above ambient when in use.

Gargoyle

12 Aug 2004, 06:18am

Looks JUST like my Speeze "Metal Gear Box Substance," except mine is USB/1394. Runs great too. Whoever is actually making these has a good, affordable product.

Unregistered

11 Oct 2004, 09:36am

My icy box does not work with my computer. I have windows2000 and xp.

Shorty

11 Oct 2004, 09:47am

Which interface do you use?? USB2 or Serial ATA :)

Gargoyle

14 Oct 2004, 08:20pm

Looks JUST like my Speeze "Metal Gear Box Substance," except mine is USB/1394. Runs great too. Whoever is actually making these has a good, affordable product.

I take it back. My Speeze enclosure crapped out. Doesn't work anymore. :banghead:

Unregistered

22 Dec 2004, 07:05pm

i'm using the same drive as in this review but a 2mb cache version. i am connecting through usb. the drive seems to disconnect and reconnect itself for no reason sometimes. has anyone else had this problem? REALLY annoying!

oh... and mesh sides for cooling?! mine has lights, hence reflective panels that cover up the mesh sides on the inside... :\

Unregistered

19 Jan 2005, 08:39pm

I have exactly the same problem, it keeps disconnecting me. I keep all my documents on there, so when i'm listening to some music or watching a movie, it f***s up in the middle of it.

Really gets on my tits..

Unregistered

16 Feb 2005, 09:30am

Hi all,
I have problems with both of my HDD using these Icy Box enclosures (model IB-350_IL USB2 + FW400). They seem to run good until all of my backups dissapear from the HDD. I experienced this phenomenon on Win XP as well as on Linux with kernel 2.6.8.
All the datas are simply whiped out when using FW400 or USB ports.
I've seen that the drivers are from Prolific (!?!?!?!) and had some problems with a Prolific driver for a USB to serial adaptor.
I will not recommand buying these Prolific bullshit to anyone! You get less than you pay for...

Unregistered

8 Mar 2005, 10:58pm

Be very careful using the icybox as your data backup. I bought one with USB2 and FW400 PATA box. It regularly corrupts the data, or it disappears completely. Only the folders can be seen. After copying the data, when you want to access it WinXP tells you that the drive is not formatted (which of course it was, when the data was copied). This is a terrible product, and I am sending mine back to where I bought it from. Hope this helps those who were thinking of getting one.

Gargoyle

9 Mar 2005, 12:46am

There you have it folks - the ICYBOX and its rebaged bretheren are not to be relied on.

redemption

14 Mar 2005, 03:47am

hello
I have had no problems with the ICYBOX at all, under multiple XP machines and in 2 different linux distros (RH and FC3)
I have even accidentally pulled the power out and the data was fine.
I therefore recommend the IcyBox (USB) !

Unregistered

23 May 2005, 12:23pm

Hi all

Would you Please anybody give me any alternative product, which is working perfect.
Kamal

Jimborae

23 May 2005, 01:16pm

My Iceybox (PATA, USB 2.0) works great, never had a any issues with it what so ever.

bugmenot

16 Aug 2005, 05:12am

guys if your want a really nice enclosure case you need to buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145369 BYTECC ME-740U2SI Aluminum 3.5" USB + SATA External Enclosure this baby sure is a good product I benched marked her at 115MBps using the sata connection and she has yet to give me any problems.. she also has an aluminum casing keeping the hard drive nice and cool.. the only time she really gets hot is when I am running games off of her... but in the process of hooking up some external water cooling to her... hands down really good product....oh yea I am using a maxtor 7200rpm 15mb cache 200g hard drive........

Barbs05

23 Jul 2008, 07:10pm

I would appreciate some advice about my new IcyBox which I received today. I have an Apple Mac machine, I connected my external hard drive to the Icybox and then to my Apple Mac. I then got a message saying that my computer was unable to read the disk and it gave me the option to 'initialize', 'ignore' or 'eject the disk. I do not want to lose the data on the disk so I chose to ignore. Previously the disk was in a Lacie enclose and a few months ago all four partitions (icons) of the disk just suddenly disappeared from my desk top. I then decided to buy a new enclosure yesterday. Can you give me some help, as in the manual which came with the Icybox, it says to make sure that the HDD jumper is set to 'Master', and I am not sure how to do this.

If anyone can help me to get my disk to work or offer any advice I would be more than grateful.

Regards

Barbs05

23 Jul 2008, 10:41pm

To jumper a drive into Master mode.

Look on the rear of the drive, near the power connection:

You should see a series of jumpers labeled Master, Slave, and Cable-select Like this:

M S C
: : :

You should move the jumper tab to the ones labeled M, if it isn't already:

-M S C
[:]: :

Leonardo

24 Jul 2008, 06:02am

Shorty, one positive you missed - maybe you didn't have a long enough testing period - is the case on the IcyBox has excellent cooling properties. I've got a very similar unit based on the very same case. You can torture that drive for hours on end, and if it's deployed standing up, the heat radiates into the aluminum walls and into the air very efficiently. It's a winning, attractive design. The one I have, purchased about six years ago, is branded "Metal Gear Solid." I use at work with an old laptop to run a slide show of my photo collection.

fatcat

24 Jul 2008, 06:16am

2004 was a good year.

Barbs05

24 Jul 2008, 09:49pm

Thanks, however, not sure what your message is in response to my query.

legweak

3 Sep 2008, 12:53pm

I have an icy box ib-mp302. can anyone tell me how to set it to master? the instruction booklet was written by the chinese and it looks like it. they are as clear as mud.

Buddy J

3 Sep 2008, 06:11pm

This one?
http://www.raidsonic.de/en/pages/products/external_cases.php?we_objectID=5071

Welcome to Icrontic legweak.

Your Amish Daddy

3 Sep 2008, 06:42pm

It means the hard drive set to master, you use the jumpers in the back. Check the label for your drive for more information on jumper positions.

legweak

4 Sep 2008, 07:51am

This one?
http://www.raidsonic.de/en/pages/products/external_cases.php?we_objectID=5071

Welcome to Icrontic legweak.
I have hitachi deskstar 500gb HDP725050gla360 hd. there is nothing on the label about "master" and there was no instructions in the box. Any suggestions about the cables?

legweak

4 Sep 2008, 07:52am

Thats the one. I have hitachi deskstar 500gb HDP725050gla360 hd. there is nothing on the label about "master" and there was no instructions in the box. Any suggestions about the cables?

Your Amish Daddy

4 Sep 2008, 08:20am

Quoting yourself doesn't get you faster results. If you look at the back of the drive on ALL hitachi's, there's white sticker above the I/O ports. If you read it, you'll know everything you need.

EDIT:// In case you didn't figure out already, it's talking about the hard disk itself, not the actual enclosure.

Buddy J

4 Sep 2008, 04:29pm

That's a SATA drive. SATA drives don't need jumpers. Is your Icybox the SATA or IDE model? You aren't trying to put an SATA drive in an IDE Icybox, are you?

Kwitko

4 Sep 2008, 04:42pm

With IDE enclosures, many times you need to remove the jumpers from the drive to get it to work.

Your Amish Daddy

4 Sep 2008, 08:48pm

So wait, he's trying to put a SATA drive in an IDE enclosure? Because he said the one that was linked was the one he had, and it's IDE.

Buddy J

4 Sep 2008, 10:07pm

There are two versions of what he linked YAD. One is IDE and one is SATA. He didn't give us the full product code to differentiate between the two. I'm only guessing that that's what our hero is trying to do.

legweak

6 Sep 2008, 09:28pm

It says 3.5" sata hdd on the box. I have been in touch with hitachi and they say that it does not need to be set to master or slave (these new hdd do not need it). They suggest that i install it through bios. Now how the hell does that work? I am not very technical when it comes to the workings of a computer, I just know how to use the programmes. Any help (and diagrams) would be very much appreciated.

Gargoyle

6 Sep 2008, 09:39pm

"Installing through BIOS" doesn't mean anything to me; the Hitachi rep could have been confused and thought you weren't using an enclosure. Exactly what problem are you having? I'm not sure setting the drive to Master (which, if it's an SATA drive, there is no setting to be changed) is what you need to be doing.

When the drive is installed in the enclosure and you plug it in to your running computer, what happens? Are you running Windows or Mac OSX?

legweak

6 Sep 2008, 10:19pm

Thrax

6 Sep 2008, 10:30pm

Wheni attached the icy box thru usb my laptop (windows xp pro) it loaded drivers. My hdd dows not show on My Computer but does show in Control Panel (Devices). No matter what I do it will not come up and I need to partition and format the drive for it to work. This for for running all formats of movies thru my tv. I told hitachi that their hdd was in an Icy Box enclosure. I am beginning to think that I have spent over �100 on something that is never going to work. If it is to work thru BIOS then I need to know how to do it.

What hitachi told you is wrong. There's nothing you need to do in the BIOS. Disregard all their comments on that. You said the HDD shows up in device manager... Have you initialized the disk (http://icrontic.com/forum/showpost.php?p=443312&postcount=2)?

legweak

7 Sep 2008, 12:50pm

What hitachi told you is wrong. There's nothing you need to do in the BIOS. Disregard all their comments on that. You said the HDD shows up in device manager... Have you initialized the disk (http://icrontic.com/forum/showpost.php?p=443312&postcount=2)?

Thank you for your advice, it WORKED. My Icy Box is now up and running. I cant wait to transfer my movies. Again many thanks.

Thrax

7 Sep 2008, 05:27pm

Glad I could help. Thanks for coming to Icrontic, Legweak. :) Stick around.

xpolar

20 Nov 2008, 11:15pm

Hi, I just bought an Icy box 351 SATA drive case with a seagate Barracuda drive and Win XP can't find it. I've tried it on another PC and exactly the same. I have an older Icy box IDE that works fine. There's no drivers on raidsonic site that are for this case. Do I need to update the motherboard drivers to get this working? Thanks.