Got myself an Icy Dock MB-455SPF 5-in-3, and is hooking it up now. The manual is a bit lacking, and the web site has no more answers, so I thought I'd ask here.

 

I have a single rail 650w PSU. There are three Molex power connectors on the cage. Will I need to connect all three to get proper function? When using three drives in the cage? When using all five? Are these connectors just soldered to the same lanes on the PCB, or are they feeding different drives in the cage? How much current can one Molex handle, and how much will five drives use?

 

I am sure someone has more experience than me and is able to give some good advice.

 

/Lars Olof

Luckily, I just tested this myself a few days ago.  Here's how it works:

 

Let's assign each drive bay a number, as so:

 

 

Now looking at the rear of the unit...

 

 

In words:

 

Assuming you have installed the unit with the purple tabs towards the bottom of the case and that the drives are numbered 1 through 5 (1 being the left most drive when you are looking at the front of the unit)....

 

When looking at the rear of the unit, the left most molex powers the two left most drives (drives 4 and 5).  The middle molex powers the two middle drives (drives 2 and 3).  The right most molex powers the right most drive (drive 1) and the fan. 

 

The unit will still work without every molex plug hooked up, but certain drive bays and possibly the fan will be disabled.

Thank you Rajahal. Just what I needed.

 

/Lars Olof

Awesome Raj.  I've been thinking we need a thread about the Icy 5-in-3's and I've been doing temperature tests that I can contribute.  I'm amazed how cool the Seagate 5900 LP drives are compared to the 7200.11 model. 

Sounds good.  Here's my observations:

 

With an Icy Dock filled with 2 TB WD EARS...

 

All drives read between 22C and 24C on boot.  I don't have any idle temp readings yet.

 

Here's the breakdown at the very end of a parity sync:

 

Model / Serial No.                                        Temperature

parity WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA1228659 35°C

disk1 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA1219192 35°C

disk2 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WMAZA1057957 34°C

disk3 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA1084591 32°C

disk4 WDC_WD20EARS-00J_WD-WCAYY0210063 35°C

 

So the outer-most disk slots do appear to be a bit warmer, which I find a bit surprising.  Generally the inner-most slots are warmest.  I guess the fan really does a good job at keeping heat out of the middle.  Ambient temp is 24.4C right now.

 

Here's another one taken at the same point in the parity sync.  Another three 2 TB WD EARS, but this time spaced out (so using slots 1, 3, and 5)

 

Model / Serial No.                                                Temperature

disk10 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA1016521 29°C

disk11 Not installed

disk12 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA0396015 28°C

disk13 Not installed

disk14 WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WCAZA0353353 29°C

 

Again, warmer on the periphery, and cooler in the center.  Same ambient as above.

 

These Icy Dock units are also the quietest 5-in-3s I've used.  I like them a lot.

In a couple more days I should have all 5 of my Seagate LP drives and I'll fill one Icy Dock to get temps.  I have temps using 7200 rpm and I'll post them as well. 

While we're at it I can get some readings from a set of 5 Hitachi deskstar 7K2000 after I get everything in place soon.

 

/Lars Olof

Heres mine, during a parity check, cache drive being written to also :-

 

Model / Serial No.                         Temperature

parity Hitachi_HDS72202_JK1130YAGX9TVT 41°C

cache SAMSUNG_HD501LJ_S12ZJ1CPA10595 33°C

disk1 Not installed

disk2 SAMSUNG_HD154UI_S1XWJ1KZ101601 29°C

disk3 SAMSUNG_HD154UI_S1Y6J1KS616605 27°C

Parity check with 5 Seagate 2TB LP drives.

 

I finally got all 5 new Seagate 2TB LP drives precleared which took 30 hours each.  And the I had to upgrade existing drives which took 9 hours each.  The 5 drives are all in one Icy Dock.  I have the Icy Dock turned so the blue latch is at the top and the drives go in the same order they are in the array from left to right.

 

The parity check has been running for many hours so the temps have stabilized.

    35c  34c  36c  36c  37c

 

Idle temps half hour after the parity check finished:

    32c  29c  31c  30c  31c

Interesting, almost the opposite pattern that I saw with WD EARS drives.  I had the Icy Dock installed so that the latch was at the bottom (I figured heat rises, so I would rather have the fan towards the top of the unit).

 

Your one drive at 37C off to the right does seem a bit odd to me.

Interesting, almost the opposite pattern that I saw with WD EARS drives.  I had the Icy Dock installed so that the latch was at the bottom (I figured heat rises, so I would rather have the fan towards the top of the unit).

 

Your one drive at 37C off to the right does seem a bit odd to me.

 

With the blue latch at the top, the slots on the left are coolest and on the right are the warmest.  I had a post with all 7200.11 drives in it I wanted to post here but I cant' find it right now.