INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Single external 3.5" desktop drives may be extremely popular especially among casual consumers due to their somewhat affordable prices (in many cases they are even cheaper compared to what you'd have to pay to get the drive inside alone) but for professionals and really demanding users multi-bay desktop enclosures are the number one choice. This is not only because such enclosures can be used with several drives (old and new for that matter) and in a wide range of different configurations such as RAID 0/1/3/5/10/50/BIG/JBOD (model dependent) but also because they are not really that much larger compared to even single bay ones (let's face it, who likes to waste desktop space?). ICY DOCK has been in the storage enclosure market since the early 2000's with several award winning products under their belt and since some of you asked today we'll be taking a very thorough look at their Black Vortex Quad-Bay USB 3.0 & eSATA External 3.5" SATA HDD Enclosure.

   ICY DOCK is a privately held company with more than 15 years of experience in design, manufacturing, branding and distribution of Storage enclosure peripherals. By constantly improving upon its own new product release strategy, ICY DOCK has formed a standard, yet efficient, new product development procedure to ensure timely product delivery to the market. At ICY DOCK, we constantly offer state-of-the-art hard disk enclosures and removable storage kits which feature removable drive & hot swap capabilities and eSATA / SATA connectivity. We also specialize in BTO (Built to Order) branded products, OEM-branded and non-branded products for our “Tier 1” customers. Headquartered in City of Industry, California, ICY DOCK became a global peripheral enclosure provider with utilizing their manufacturing facility located in Zhang-Zang, China since 1997. Adhering to strict ISO9001 manufacturing guidelines, ICY DOCK delivers high quality standard products at a competitive price which provides our customers with an excellent opportunity to be successful in the competitive US marketplace. As one of the leading peripheral enclosure solution providers, we will continue to commit ourselves to supplying our customers with the best performance per dollar products. “Your demand is our command” is the key to ensure our success in the business world.

   Although most multi-bay external desktop enclosures in the market today offer consumers the ability to configure the mounted drives in RAID, BIG and/or JBOD the Black Vortex by ICY DOCK offers only the latter. Certainly although some people will obviously consider this as a downside the Black Vortex can actually be far more useful to people like us who just want to mount several drives inside and use each of them separately without having to worry about losing all their data or wasting crucial space for mirroring purposes. The Black Vortex however stands out not because of its USB 3.0 and eSATA connectivity (many similar models have those) but because of its open frame design (improved airflow levels) and front mounted 120mm intake LED fan which can be controlled via a 3-speed controller and is accompanied by an removable air-filter. ICY DOCK has also made it possible to turn of the build in LEDs of the fan and in case the stock fan is not quite good enough for you then you can easily replace it with pretty much any 120mm model of your choosing. The enclosure also features an easy-removable grip handle for the drives which although very easy to use unfortunately it's not of a tool-less design.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The main product features are listed at the front of the box right next to a picture of the product and beneath the manufacturer logo.

 

 

Four pictures showcasing the main product features are placed on both sides.

 

 

Printed at the rear of the box is the specifications table, available connectivity and a picture of the product.

 

 

Aside the Black Vortex quad-bay external enclosure you will also receive the power adapter and its power cord, USB 3.0 cable, eSATA cable, two spare EZ-Grip handles, plastic bag with screws and the user manual.

 

 

THE BLACK VORTEX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Measuring 235.5mm in length, 144.8mm in width and 130mm in height the 1303g heavy Black Vortex looks very nice thanks to its open frame design (did someone say Borg?).

 

 

Out of curiosity we placed the Black Vortex right next to a compact dual-bay external enclosure (no longer available in the market).

 

 

As you can all see the fascia is largely perforated to allow air to reach the 120mm intake fan behind it.

 

 

To access the interior you just need to open the enclosure from the front.

 

 

Young Lin Technologies is behind the 120mm blue LED fan (1350±5%RPM / 46CFM / 20dBA).

 

 

The air-filter is placed between the fascia and the fan and can be removed by pulling it outwards.

 

 

Aside the 4 EZ-Grip handles inside the case ICY DOCK bundles two extra ones so you can swap two extra drives with ease.

 

 

Unfortunately these handles require you to use two screws with each drive (although if you have the enclosure in a fixed and secure position you can just slide in the drives themselves without these EZ-Grips).

 

 

Each drive has its own activity LED and beneath those we see the 3-speed (High/Low/Off) fan control switch and the on/off LED switch.

 

 

The activity LEDs and the two switches at the front are routed at the rear so pay extra attention to this cable.

 

 

The rear is also slightly perforated and has an on/off switch, USB 3.0 host port, eSATA port and the DC in.

 

 

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

   Complicating things is not really our way so once again our testing procedure will be almost identical to the one we use with external docking stations. However since we are talking about an multi-bay 3.5" external enclosures this time over we will be using one or more (depends on the mode) Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III hard disk drives since mechanical drives are obviously what people will use more with such devices (besides in quad+ enclosures these should pretty much max out the performance of the onboard controller). Our standard selection of benchmark suites is used here as well for both single and RAID 0 testing including the famous HD Tach RW (Long Bench 32mb Zones), HD Tune Pro (read/write -when possible- speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read/Write -also when possible- speeds), AIDA64 (Linear Read/Random Read), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB/1000MB read/write speeds) and finally the quite outdated yet highly reliable ATTO 2.47 (Max Read/Max Write speeds).

   Temps as usual were recorded using the latest version of Hard Disk Sentinel along with the sensors provided by AIDA64. Every test was repeated for a total of 6 times and after that the average (not peak) performance numbers were recorded into our graphs. As always every test was performed in a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows 10 Pro with every update installed up to October 5th 2016.

* For this review we used 4 Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB SATA III drives.

 

 

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS – TEMPERATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The Black Vortex by ICY DOCK is unlike any other external HDD enclosure in the market today and that was enough for us to welcome it in our lab with many positive comments (mostly regarding its design and 120mm intake fan). True it may not have the same amount of space for drives like some other enclosures (including the 5 bay one by Terra Master which we reviewed a couple of weeks ago) but even just 4 bays should be enough to cover most consumers out there (not nearly enough for our backups but the Black Vortex has secured a place next our primary test rig). The front 120mm LED fan is quite silent even at full speed but since its performance may not be enough for some people being able to swap it with a model of your choosing is a great feature (for example after our tests we equipped the Black Vortex with a Noctua Industrial PPC NF-F12 fan) as is the 3-speed controller (although I’d prefer the “accuracy” of a knob). ICY DOCK did well to introduce their EZ-Grip handles for faster swapping of drives but the use of screws is something that may disappoint potential buyers (although it shouldn’t be enough to make them choose something else). As for performance we got similar results as with the 5-bay Terra Master D5-300 model so we have no complaints here.

   With a current price tag set at USD89.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 124Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) you really can’t go wrong with the Black Vortex (MB174U3S-4SB) by ICY DOCK. It can accommodate up to four 3.5” drives, has very good read & write performance levels, looks great and has one of the best cooling systems we’ve seen with an external HDD enclosure. Granted it does not feature RAID and BIG modes so for some professionals the Black Vortex may not be exactly what they’re looking for but for most people JBOD is more than sufficient (not to mention more “certain” in case of a drive failure). Long story short if you’re after a 4-bay JBOD external HDD enclosure then the Black Vortex by ICY DOCK is worth every penny and for that it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Design
- Very Good Performance
- 4x3.5” Drive Bays
- USB 3.0 & eSATA Connectivity
- Single Removable 120mm LED Intake Fan
- 3-Speed Fan & LED Controllers
- Removable Air-Filter
- Price (For Some)

 

CONS

- JBOD Mode Only