Icy Dock MB080U3S-1SB Blizzard 3.5″ SATA External Hard Drive Enclosure Review

There are a number of products on the market that I really like the look of, but its sad to say that this is not one of them. This is only a personal matter as the stark fan positioning on the front to me is a bit over the top. I will however look at it from the alternate angle and I can see where Icy Dock are coming from. The gaming and modding communities can have a widely varied taste in design, and I’m sure that there is a number of people out there who will see this and will love it. To me its one of those marmite designs. By having the 80mm fan installed, the cooling that is given to the drive is very effective and I’ll give it to Icy Dock for the out the box thinking on that one.

Performance wise, I was surprised to see that the eSATA connection didn’t perform as well as I was expecting and the USB3.0 results were more in line with what I was expecting. Considering the vast majority of users will be connecting this enclosure up via USB, I expect that this minor point won’t worry them. Its one to highlight though and perhaps one the Icy Dock with look into for those that do use eSATA.

Pricing wise, the Blizzard enclosure hits the shelves at around the £50-60 mark, which is in-line with their previous offerings that we have seen. Whether this is a bit high or not will be proven by the enclosures sales in the long run, but we will consider that design aside, the enclosure has full USB3.0 and eSATA functionality, effective cooling and support for up to 3TB drives which puts the ticks in some boxes over other options on the market.

With the price of hard drives now coming down to a point where they are easily affordable once more, I can imagine that the uptake on buying enclosures and drives separate will start to become more common but as with all things, it comes down to the end users needs, meaning that for some, the preconfigured drives are just as good ie, as long as it has the capacity then that’s what matters.

So where does this enclosure leave me. As much as I would want to like it I’m afraid its just not for me. I’m sure that there are one or two in the modding and gaming community that will see it with love at first sight – there always is. Part of this comes down to the space that it takes up on the desk and if used alongside another enclosure or two, you’ll soon have little space left to play with. Should you buy it then? If you like it by all means I’m not saying you shouldn’t but personally I feel there are better option in Icy Docks product lineup.