ICY Dock Black Vortex MB174U3S‑4SB Storage drive cage Review

I recently purchased a new desktop computer that only had space for 2 HD's. I have a few other drives that I wanted access to. The new computer has highspeed usb3 ports so I was looking for some device to attach my drives through usb3. I decided on the ICY Dock Black Vortex MB174U3S‑4SB storage drive cage.

First of all, it's cool looking. It is well ventilated and has a forced air cooling via a fan on front. It also has cool blue LED lighting. The fan has 3 settings - off, low, and high. The LED's have 3 settings as well - off, some, all. I leave the LED's off, but if you want the cool blue lights, they are there.

The cage has four 3.5inch drive slots. 3.5inch drives are easy to install. A simple handle is screwed onto the drive and it slides into the dock and that's it. If you want to use 2.5inch drives, I suggest you purchase the Icy Dock EZConvert Lite MB882SP-1S-3B device, which will allow a 2.5inch drive to easily fit in the 3.5inch dock.

The power switch is on back of the unit. I presently leave the power on at all times, even if I shut the desktop down. When I power on the desktop, the drives are immediately available.

My unit is presently filled with three 3.5inch drives and one 2.5inch drive. The unit comes with 2 additional handles, so one could have 6 HD's ready for use in the unit. The drives are hot-swappable.

I have not had any issues so far and the unit has performed quite well.

You can find it on Amazon here.

Dropbox Convenience

I have found a new app which is very useful. I have always had a USB thumb drive to store file for carrying between work and home. Well now there is an application that does away with the need for a thumb drive to transfer file. It's called Dropbox The service/application comes with 2 Gb of storage in the basic account. It allows you to upload files from your computer at work and download these files on your home computer. You can also share files. You can also upload photos for backup or sharing. It has its' own photo viewer. So you can upload photos and then send a link via email to a friend who can then use this link to view the photos. Any type of file can be shared. It comes with a desktop app that provides a dropbox icon in your taskbar. By double clicking the icon, the dropbox opens in an explorer window and you can add or delete file.

Dropbox is a good way to sync files between computers. All you need is a dropbox account and browser. Pretty cool stuff.