ICY DOCK MB559US-1SMB: eSATA Enclosure with Pizzazz

Quick Take

If you are needing to quickly add portable storage to your personal computer system, PVR, or home network then we believe eSATA is the way to do it at this time. Throughout our testing we found that eSATA operation was transparent in the BIOS and in Windows. As far as the system was concerned, the eSATA drive was no different than an internal SATA setup. Although there were a few performance differences in our test suite between our eSATA and internal SATA setups, they were very minor leading us to the conclusion that there is not a true performance difference between the two formats.

Something we never doubted, but it is nice to have data to back up this belief. We believe the minor differences we noticed were probably due to the utilization of the conversion bracket as our test motherboard did not have a native eSATA connection. We did run the same tests on an ASUS P5K-Deluxe board and only in the Sims2 test was there a difference, which was less than two tenths of a second. In fact, in the Nero Recode tests the eSATA setup finished first both times.


We found that ICY DOCK's MB559US-1SMB performed admirably throughout our test sessions. More importantly this enclosure has not failed us in daily use over the course of the last two months. The quality, fit, documentation, and function of the MB559US-1SMB is absolutely superb. Considering the estimated price of $59.99, we expected no less than this type of operation from this external enclosure.

This does not mean all is perfect with the unit. Our noise measurements singled out our primary problem with the enclosure as sounds that were not immediately noticeable with the bare drive became noticeable once the drive was in the enclosure. This problem was expected as ICY BOX made no attempt was to silence the drive inside the enclosure through acoustic padding or drive mounting isolation. That said, to be fair, the ICY DOCK is no better or worse in this respect than any of its competitors we have tested to date. As a reminder, use this enclosure in the vertical position if you have a drive that likes to vibrate such as our Samsung T166 review unit.

As far as day to day operations, we felt constricted having to lug the external power supply around when utilizing the enclosure on different machines but this is true of any eSATA unit. At times the 1m long eSATA cable restricted our ability to locate the drive in a proper position. The inclusion of a 2m long cable would have been appreciated, especially considering the price. One other problem we had was the fact that our drive would not spin down while in the enclosure. It appears that this power savings feature is not implemented by ICY DOCK in their controller setup, so we needed to power off the unit when it was not going to be utilized.

However, these nuances aside, the ICY DOCK MB559US-1SMB delivers on its promise to provide seamless eSATA support while providing a very good USB 2.0 connection option. It is easy to use and simply does what it is supposed to do all the while looking like an industrial art piece on your desk. We would not hesitate to recommend it at this time. Oh yeah, if you are like us when it comes to handling equipment, we highly suggest a polish cloth or some gloves if you order it in black.