In Use:

For the purpose of testing, the ICYRaid enclosure was outfitted with a pair of 3.5" 2TB Seagate Barracuda drives, as shown in the image below.



Installing these drives in the enclosure is rather easy since the whole assembly is tool-less when using 3.5" drives. You simply open the front door, slide the drives in as far you can by hand, and then use the door to pop the drives on to the SATA data and power headers, and to latch the door shut. As mentioned previously, the doors are not very robust, so work slowly and deliberately to make sure nothing breaks. I have a feeling that these doors won't last, so I work very cautiously and do not intend to open this thing up any more than is really necessary.



The next step towards using this enclosure was simply to plug it in, but the plug wouldn't go in regardless of orientation... I then looked at the plug on the power brick and see that it has two large blades. One large and one small is acceptable, and two small blades is acceptable, but two large blades just doesn't work with any outlet or surge strip that I have ever used. This seems like an odd manufacturing defect that is hard to believe is possible. Eventually I found an old extension cord that had a rubbery end that allowed the two large blades to slide in. With the brick plugged in to the wall and the ICYRaid enclosure, nothing happened. I noticed what looked like an LED on the power brick and it was not lighting up. So, the brick's plug was defective and the brick itself was a dud. What are the odds?



I happened to have a comparable power adapter from another device, and I was finally able to power up the ICYRaid enclosure! In the meantime, I had contacted ICY DOCK, and they were quick to send out a replacement power adapter. Hopefully anyone else that happens to need to contact them gets such prompt and effective service.

Once powered up, everything was smooth and easy. The fan spun up to its full speed, which was slightly audible and whiny, but not extreme. I dialed it back down a bit and it was no longer noticeable.

I then went about configuring the drives. You simply set the switch to the drive configuration you want, and then press the reset button once. The first time I selected any one of the modes, Windows 7 would indicate that my new hardware was ready to use and confirm that it was either an ICYRaid RAIDO USB 3.0 device, ICYRaid RAID1 USB 3.0 device, etc. Setting things up is super quick, and all you will have to do is enter Windows Storage Manager to complete the initialization, formatting, and assignment of a drive letter. I would suggest picking a configuration and sticking with it, but if you do want to change modes please keep in mind that all data will be lost when you do so.