Review of the Icy Dock MB877IK Hard Drive Enclosure

If you want to swap out SATA or SAS drives on a regular basis from your desktop computer but you don’t want to continue to open the computer up, then you should take a look at the MB877IK Hard Drive Enclosure from Icy Dock.

Over the years I have collected a number of older SATA hard drives as I have replaced them. Some of these go in my Windows Home Server and some are just used to store older stuff on. Whenever I need to access those drives, I either have to open my main desktop computer and sway things out, or I use an external device that enables me to sit the drive in. However, both of these are not ideal, the external device often plays up and I don’t like leaving my drives “exposed”.

This is where the MB877IK comes into play. This enclosure sits in your desktop and enables you to just slide a drive in and use it. As with other Icy Dock equipment it also cools the drive as well.

One great addition to this enclosure over other drive enclosures I have seen and used is that this one enables you to use SAS drives. SAS stands for Serial Attached SCSI and these drives are a lot smaller and faster!

WHATS IN THE BOX?

The box is very small, in fact only slightly bigger that the drive enclosure itself. It contains the enclosure, a set of keys to lock the drive in place and a small user manual.

A CLOSER LOOK

As you would expect from a drive enclosure, it is very simple to use and fit. The rear of the enclosure has a power connector, a fan and two SATA ports.

ADDING A DRIVE

Adding a drive to the enclosure is very simple. You just open the front of the enclosure and slide the hard drive in and as it slides in, the front closes up with a click. You can then choose to either lock the drive in place or not bother. For ease of showing this, the pictures below show the enclosure outside of a desktop computer, although you would do this with the enclosure already fitted in the desktop.

CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

There isn’t really much else to say on using the enclosure. It is very easy to fit, easy to use, and works very well. Simple!

The enclosure remains powered up at all times when the computer is switched on. I suppose I would have preferred an on/off switch at the front perhaps, but this isn’t a huge problem. And in the past I have certainly used Icy Dock enclosures for all my drives, even those I had no intention of swapping out.

Make sure that you connect the SATA cable to the correct port on the back of the enclosure, because yes, the first one I connected it to was no the right one! Still, that only took a moment to correct.

Overall I can highly recommend this enclosure as it works and does what it says on the tin. Yet another product from Icy Dock worth having.

To learn more about this enclosure, and other products from Icy Dock, click here: http://www.icydock.com/product/mb877ik-b.html

The MB877IK Hard Drive enclosure retails for less than $35, so it certainly won’t break the bank.