ICY DOCK MB973SP-B Tray-less 3 in 2 SATA I/II/III Hot-Swap Backplane RAID Cage Module w/ eSATA & USB2.0

Pros: Fit nicely, no dremel on Coolermaster case. Put the drives in with no issue and it is off and working as avertised on a Windows Home Server V2. Also picked up the ICY dock 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch adapter for an SSD drive for the same server. This is allowing so much more expansion in a mid tower case. As an IT guy on a storage farm this seems so much like the servers I work with day to day. Drive out and drive in without having to shutdown.

Cons: None that I can think of. It was easy to install.

Other Thoughts: I am going to go ahead and order a second one for future expansion and redundancy in this server.

Pros: I bought this to move a RAID set further away from the CPU in a pretty tight 2U server chassis. 3 WD Reds front loaded with their own fan greatly reduces the heat inside the 2U.

Its not noisy at all and works perfectly.

Cons: Why are there 2 4 pin molex connectors in the back instead of SATA? I had to break out a 4 pin modular cable (adding another cable to the mix) just to get this installed.

Other Thoughts: Could use an option to turn off the 3 LEDs. Luckily my 2U case has a door over the chassis and its covered but just how many LEDs do I need in my house these days?

Pros: Tool-less design for quickly replacing and installing disks, quiet cooling fan and convenient eSATA and USB port.

Cons: Unaware until I installed, the drive bays are meant for full height (1 in) 3.5" drives, some modern drives are not full height (0.75) but are still 3.5" drives, meaning it was very difficult to get the modern drives in there.

The cooling fan doesn't have as much shielding from wires as previous models, so I had to be careful not to get any wires in range of the fan blades.

The power buttons for each drive seemed like a good idea...until, well see other thoughts.

Other Thoughts: My goal was to simply move my existing RAID-1 drives from one backplane to this new one to make room for another RAID set. Upon test booting, I forgot to turn on the power button for each drive. As a result, my RAID was forced into degraded mode which took 12 hrs to rebuild, and upon boot attempt, my bootmgr was corrupted beyond repair and I was forced to reinstall windows.

Fortunately, this is not a production server and merely a lab Hyper-V server and I still have backups. But lesson learned, be sure to have the drive power buttons on before turning on the system!

Pros: I spent a great deal of time looking for an ideal drive cage for my media server. I believe I have found the perfect solution of form and function with ICY DOCK's MB973SP.

From an aesthetics standpoint, the front face of the cage has clean lines and looks nice nestled into a black case.

Functionally, I had no issues installing the unit and it has been operating as expected. The drive levers are sturdy and inserting and ejecting the drives takes very little force. The power buttons/LED's require a little effort to depress, reducing the likelihood of accidental shut-offs. Overall very happy with this cage and would definitely recommend ICY DOCK's products.

Cons: One of the three drive bays required a bit more force to insert the hard drive. After the initial effort, the hard drive inserted and ejected with no issue. Don't panic if one of the bays feels a little "stiff".

Other Thoughts: Great cage for the price, I'm happy with the quality of ICY DOCK's manufacturing. The LED's are bright, but I'm not bothered by it; may be an issue/distraction for some if installing in the same room as their media center. NOTE: I purchased this cage off of another e-tailer; at the time, Newegg did not have the item in stock.

Pros: Great unit! I have 3 of these and they work as advertised, although I don't use the raid option so I can't speak to that.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I had a hard drive jam in the unit and when I opened the door a plastic pin retainer broke. ICY DOCK customer service was very responsive via email. I had forgot to register the unit so I was able to register it even though it was over one year old. The let me apply for an RMA. Nice customer service.

Pros: Really sorry that this isn't sold at NewEgg any longer. This has to be the best hot swap SATA backplane I have ever used provided that I don't use a Seagate drive.

Cons: Don't put a Seagate drive in it. WD drives and every other drive fits in smoothly. But Seagate drives have a little edge where the middle screw goes that catches on the metal flange that controls the eject mechanism. I had to take the entire enclosure apart to get 2 Seagate drives out of it.

Other Thoughts: I love ICY Dock components. They are well built, mechanically sound, and they work well. All of the docks that require caddys make storing the drives and moving drives between computers a big pain. But being able to slip in a bare drive makes this a really convenient device. Too bad Seagate drives stick in it.

Pros: Fairly well put together, not an industrial strength unit, but not likely to fall apart with occasional swapping. Well thought out cooling solution with replaceable fan. Front USB 2.0 and eSATA make efficient use of space and blue LEDs for individual drives make for a sleek look.

Cons: Almost no documentation reporting that the drive LEDs are also power buttons. Documentation states that the unit should power on when a drive is inserted like almost any other drive bay which is not true. eSATA cable is too short and could have been made removable. USB connector is not fused and each pin must be plugged in individually.

Other Thoughts: The power button design is counter intuitive. Doing an offline storage upgrade for a client 3 hours from home at 1AM it is so counter intuitive I thought the unit was dead and had it RMAed, causing me to make another trip to my client for free. When the second unit failed to power on, I only discovered the power buttons via reading these reviews!

Pros: Fits in two drive bays and holds 3 SATA drives which can be swapped around on the fly if you are careful.

Cons: I developed a problem with the power on the top drive bay after 3 or 4 months. It will turn on and then after a while blink randomly disconnecting the drive. I have tried other drives with the same problem. Probably a problem with the switch but maybe something else. Waiting on a replacement to get it out and troubleshoot.

Other Thoughts: On the fly swaps need to be done carefully (using Win7), take off line with Disk Management, turn the power off or pull the drive out 3/4" and wait 15 to 30 secs for it to spin down completely before removing.

Running Win7 64 bit on Asus P6X58D and a promise SATA300TX PCI adapter card.

Pros: Clever packaging.

Cons: The drives would show up but the OS would not install. No problem installing OS with the drives hooked up directly. Hopefully I got a defective unit and others won't experience this, but I am not willing try again. This ICY DOCK is being returned for a refund.

Other Thoughts: The power buttons/indicators are required to be pushed in with a tool (my finger could not push it in enough) for it to stay 'clicked' in the on or off state. Not a big deal if you know about it, but the directions indicate the power will come on when a drive is placed in the dock.

Also this dock requires 2 molex connectors and no SATA power connectors.

Pros: Fits nicely in a dual bay opening. Drives slide in comfortably. Works great with SATA II drives.

Cons: Can't get it to reliably work with a SATA III drive. The ICY DOCK site says that this will work with SATA III but the drive constantly times out. Put a SATA II drive in the same slot and it works great. My SATA III is a Marvell 9128 on an ASUS MB.