Product Description

Technical DataStorage Controller / Form FactorExternalTechnical DataStorage Controller / Interface TypeHi-Speed USBTechnical DataStorage Controller / Supported DevicesHard driveTechnical DataDimensions & Weight / Widthcm8Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Depthcm13.7Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Heightcm1.2Technical DataDimensions & Weight / Weightg70Technical DataStorage Controller / Controller Interface TypeSerial ATA-150Technical DataHeader / Product LineRaidSonic ICY BOXTechnical DataHeader / ModelIB-250StUTechnical DataHeader / CompatibilityPCTechnical DataHeader / ManufacturerRaidSonic TechnologyTechnical DataHeader / Packaged Quantity1Technical DataMiscellaneous / Product Type (CG)Storage enclosure

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21093 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Icybox
• Model: IB-250ST-U
• Released on: 2007-08-15
• Dimensions: 3.15" h x 5.39" w x .47" l, .15 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
RaidSonic's target is to develop innovative products, which enrich and perfect the use of mass storage in a functional, aesthetic and high quality way. By the consequent use of high class components and materials, RaidSonic has positioned its products in the upper level market segment.PRODUCT FEATURES:Compact Aluminum Case;Artificial Leather Pocket;Supports 2.5" SATA HDD;USB 2.0 Host Interface;LED display for power and HDD access;Plug-and-Play.

Customer Reviews

Small, light and inexpensive
Measuring about 8 x 13.5 x 1 cm (or around 2cm wider and taller than an iPod Touch) this Icy Box enclosure holds a 2.5" Serial ATA laptop hard drive for easy transportation of data when the storage capacity of a CD/DVD or flash drive just isn't enough. Made of thin aluminium, this helps to keep the weight of the enclosure down but also makes it feel like it might not be able to take too much of a knock so using it as an impromptu hammer isn't advised. It comes in two sections, split down the middle and held together with 4 retaining screws, and holds a single drive snugly if a little tightly. It has two LEDs, one to indicate its power statues and one to show when the hard drive is being accessed, as well as a power switch, USB and power ports.

In the box you get the enclosure itself, a packet of 6 screws (although only 4 are used so some are spares, nice touch), a screwdriver (another nice touch), a CD of drivers for older Windows and Mac machines, a USB to mini-USB cable, a USB to power cable and a soft faux-leather case for carrying the enclosure and documentation around. In this day and age of scrimping and cost-cutting, it is good to see so much of use included in a package costing less than £15.

Fitting the drive is pretty simple - you just undo the 4 retaining screws, slot the drive into the port inside (I used the Seagate Momentus drive I removed from my PS3) and close the whole thing up. You then connect it to your PC using the USB cable provided - I found that this cable on its own provided sufficient power to spin up the drive although some people might find that they need to use the power cable as well. My Vista machine saw the drive and installed the drivers immediately but the drive wasn't recognised in the 'My Computer' list. After much trawling of the net, I found that this was because the drive hadn't been initialised for use and I needed to initialise and format the drive before it could be properly recognised.

To initialise the drive on a Vista machine, you first right-click "Computer", select "Manage" then select the "Disk Management" tab on the left. The pane at the bottom of the `Computer Management' console displays your PC's drives and their state - if your new drive is listed in this pane but not on the top of the page, it needs to be formatted. There should be a black line in the bottom pane indicating the "raw" nature of this drive while the others are blue indicating they are formatted and ready for use, whilst the information box next to the drive should also say "Unallocated". Right-click in that part of the pane containing the black line and select "Intialize" - the drive should then show up in your 'My Computer' list, from where it can be formatted for use. After formatting, it should also show up as a mass storage device which will enable you to drag-and-drop files to and from it without any trouble.

Holding the Seagate drive, the combination runs silently in normal use, although it does get a little warm but not enough to cause me too much concern at the moment. It's very light and fairly small, especially when you consider that the enclosure is barely larger than the drive itself, and is a better deal than buying dedicated flash drives. The case provided only holds the drive and not the cables, but for less than £15 I'm not going to make too much of a fuss about it. On the whole, this is a nice package and an effective and fairly cheap may of making use of your old laptop drives. It may not be as convenient to carry around as a flash drive, but get yourself a good quality hard drive to put inside and you have a much larger storage capacity for much less cash.

Cheap, does the job
This is a nice cheap enclosure, and very small, barely bigger than the drive.

I was disappointed to find that when plugged into my laptop, the drive did not get enough power via USB to operate - i needed to plug in the second USB cable.

However this seems to be based on the machine - I tried on another laptop, and it worked fine - So i guess its luck if your laptop provides enough power on the USB ports to power it!

update: turns out one of the 2 USB ports on my laptop was underpowered! one is full power (so the HD works), the other is simply a underpowered port so no good! Just have to make sure I plug it in the correct one!

Icy Box perfect for old PS3 hard drive
Received this today and it does exactly what it says on the tin. I upgraded my PS3's hard drive to a much larger Western Digital one and decided to put the old Seagate drive into one of these to use as a backup drive.

Works fine and even comes with a little screwdriver and 6 (though you only need 4) screws to fix the drive in place plus a little carry pouch.

Excellent value at about £14.