Today I will be reviewing an external HDD enclosure from Icy Box called “IB-318STU3-B” (wonderful name). It has a USB 3.0 interface which should boost the data transfer speeds significantly, at least according to the specs.

INTRODUCTION

Only months ago, the third revision of the USB standard appeared. I’ve seen it called both “USB 3.0” and “USB SuperSpeed”. What is clear is that the new version includes several improvements compared to USB 2.0.

The most important update is of course the increase of the data transfer speed (theoretical) to 4.8Gbps (600MB/s) compared to USB 2.0’s 480Mbps (35MB/s). This is really a huge difference.

Another important change is the maximum power output of USB 3.0 of 900mA (500mA in USB 2.0), which will allow USB 3.0 ports to power a number of devices and accessories to laptops. In real world, this means fewer AC adapters to accessories like external harddrives, notebook cooling pads etc.

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Summary: Icy Dock has an interesting hard drive case which lets us mount 2.5 inch SSD hard drives (or normal mechanical 2.5 inch drives) in conventional desktop chassis. In other words it converts a 2.5 inch SATA150 or SATA300 drive to a 3.5 inch SATA drive.

INTRODUCTION

Until recently there was no point in installing 2.5 inch drives in desktop cases. These drives couldn’t compete with the 3.5 inch drives either in performance or price. With the SSDs now dropping in price the scene has somewhat changed or is at least undergoing a change. If you are building a HTPC or something similar you may actually want a SSD in it to make it more silent, faster or for whatever reason. Now as most desktop cases, even smaller HTPC cases, only supports 3.5 inch drives, you will need some kind of converting hard drive enclosure if you want to install a 2.5 inch hard drive. And this is where the Icy Dock MB882 case comes in.

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