Introduction

ICY DOCK's line of products has continued to expand over the years. While they have always kept pace with market trends and interface configurations, their current generation of external enclosures has been of particular interest to the AnandTech labs. The ICY DOCK MB664US-1S is the latest such product to grace our labs, and we'll put it through the paces in this review.

As has been discussed in previous articles, there are three current mainstream interfaces used for high-speed data transfer: FireWire, USB, and eSATA.

eSATA, Firewire and USB Comparison
	eSATA	FireWire 800 (1394b)	USB 2.0
Peak Transfer Rate (MB/sec)	300	100	60
Cable Length (M)	2	4.5	5
Daisy Chain Capable	No	Yes	Yes

USB 2.0 undoubtedly has achieved the greatest level of proliferation for external interfaces, despite lacking the bandwidth for serious data transfer. FireWire has been around the longest, though its market penetration has been stunted due to early patent and royalty disputes. The relative newcomer, eSATA, is the focus of most recent high-performance external hard drive enclosures. ICY DOCK has remained agnostic, supporting all three interfaces on various configurations of their enclosures (including different versions of the MB664).

The ICY DOCK MB664US-1S, which offers both USB 2.0 and eSATA ports, is the subject of this review.