As you can see, the Icy box is a very classy looking piece of equipment. Securing the drives in place makes use of the mounting holes on the underside of all IDE hard disks., rather than the normal lateral way of mounting drives. The drive is touched on all sides by conductive metal, which helps to dissipate heat away from the drive itself. Hard drive activity is shown by the illuminating edges of the drive, which glow a slightly brighter blue when the drive is being accessed.
Since this is the IDE version, power is provided by a regular Molex connection, and connectivity to the drive via a mini ATA cable. The drive fits in the box very snugly, although you should secure it using screws to prevent it from moving around. The top panel is secured using thumbscrews which double up as feet. The Icy Box also comes with a PS2 style holder if you want to mount it in an upright position rather than down flat.
The DC power pack is fairly bulky which does reduce the Icy Box’s portability somewhat. However, it does allow use in multiple countries provided they have a regular PC lead available, since it steps down the voltage to that required. Note that the Icy Box is completely silent, so only the sound of the drives will be emitted from its chassis. For quiet operation, I recommend Seagate or Samsung hard drives as being considerably quieter in both seek and idle compared to Hitachi, Western Digital or Maxtor competing products.
