Conclusion:

The Icy Dock MB124E External Firewire 2.5" Drive Enclosure is very attractive, with a sleek, understated, and perhaps even sophisticated appearance. The aluminum shell is not only rugged, but it may help keep the drive cool. The rubber trim features will add to the ruggedness, while the rubber feet may be the best portion of the design. They not only eliminate the transfer of vibration to your desktop, but the internal structure suspends the drive away from any rigid surface. The drive that was audible in a different enclosure was now silenced thanks to the vibration isolating and noise reducing design of the MB124E.

Although the aesthetics and acoustics earn it high marks, the Icy Dock MB124E falters when it comes to performance. Two reliable benchmarks indicate that the transfer rates provided by the MB124E are about half of what a USB 2.0 enclosure was capable of. Despite numerous attempts to improve the results with different conditions, configurations, and all-together different test systems, the results were consistently and unexplainably poor.


Other than the performance, other issues with the Icy Dock MB124E are more of a personal preference than actual problems. As shown in one picture, this isn't the most compact enclosure you can get for your 2.5" hard drive. I have had USB 2.0 and combination USB 2.0/Firewire enclosures that are smaller, and the USB 2.0 used in testing is less than half the volume of the MB124E. The only other thing is that the design is not tool-less or even close. You will need a rather small/thin straight bladed screwdriver for the four external screws, as well as philips head screwdriver for the two internal screws.

A search of PriceGrabber turns up many results for Icy Dock, but nothing for this product. Searching elsewhere doesn't do much better, but I did find it at one retailer, buywee.com, with a price of $45.00 (US). That isn't out of line for a Firewire enclosure, but considering a USB 2.0 enclosure that cost $5 beat it in testing, it might be hard to justify unless you have to use Firewire.

Given the way the drive became instantly silent when installed in this enclosure, I award the Icy Dock MB124E External Firewire 2.5" Drive Enclosure the rating of "Whisper Quiet".


Pros:

» Extremely quiet
» Attractive design
» Aluminum shell is sturdy and should help cool drive

Cons:

» Slow!
» Not the most compact 2.5" enclosure

Special thanks to Icy Dock for providing the Icy Dock MB124E External Firewire 2.5" Drive Enclosure to Bigbruin.com for review!