AIDA 64 Extreme Edition
AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
In order to see if Icy Docks FatCage hinders the performance of the Western Digital Se drives, a baseline performance test with the drive directly connected to the test bench is made.
Placing the same drive into one of the five bays and performing the same test within AIDA once more, we can see that there is a very tiny amount of performance loss which is to be expected from adding in the back-plane. By all accounts though the drive still performs to a very high level as we would want.
The reason Icy Dock hasn’t put the gaps on the side of the unit to allow for the drive rails is that there is no room for this in a 5-in-3 design. All 5-in-3 drive cages are like this. There is only room in the 4 drive and below drive cages… I personally know it’s physically impossible because I currently have 5 drives mounted in my system to nothing more than a metal plate and there is no way the existing Antec Twelve Case rails will fit with drives mounted 5 thick; I had to bend the rails out of the way. The rails would otherwise literally be well inside the outer two drives’ housing. If you think perhaps I have the drives spaced to far apart, I do not: You can barely get a popsicle stick to fit between the drives (used to keep them from touching).