ICY DOCK MB559US-1SMB: eSATA Enclosure with Pizzazz
by Gary Key and Dave Robinet on July 11, 2007 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Hardware Setup
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of RAM. Our choice of high-range OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 used for our benchmark results.
Our test bed now includes a water-cooled MSI 8800 GTX video card to ensure our game tests are not completely GPU bound and to reduce noise/heat levels. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolution for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each system to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The two high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ, TCQ, or RAID settings.
Our test drive today will be the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB that we recently reviewed. We implemented ACHI (advanced host controller interface) in the BIOS to properly test the hot swap capabilities of this drive enclosure when utilizing the eSATA interface. Without the proper matrix storage driver support and ACHI implementation, hot swapping was not possible with our test bed setup.
| Standard Test Bed Playback of iPEAK Trace Files and Test Application Results |
|
| Processor | Intel QX6700 - 2.66GHz Quad Core |
| Motherboard | DFI Infinity 965-S |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 Settings - DDR2-800 - 3-4-3-9 |
| OS Hard Drive | 1 x Western Digital WD1500 Raptor - 150GB |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel 8.1.1.1010 Intel Matrix RAID 6.2.1.1002 |
| Video Card | 1 x MSI 8800GTX |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA ForceWare 158.19 |
| Optical Drive | Plextor PX-760A, Plextor PX-B900A |
| Cooling | Tuniq 120 |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX620 |
| Case | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of RAM. Our choice of high-range OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 used for our benchmark results.
Our test bed now includes a water-cooled MSI 8800 GTX video card to ensure our game tests are not completely GPU bound and to reduce noise/heat levels. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolution for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each system to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The two high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ, TCQ, or RAID settings.
Our test drive today will be the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB that we recently reviewed. We implemented ACHI (advanced host controller interface) in the BIOS to properly test the hot swap capabilities of this drive enclosure when utilizing the eSATA interface. Without the proper matrix storage driver support and ACHI implementation, hot swapping was not possible with our test bed setup.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
13 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Thursday, July 12, 2007 - link
We discovered an issue with the Intel Matrix Storage driver version 7.0.0.1020 and our ICY DOCK review unit that prevented true SATA 3Gb/s operation. An update to version 7.5.0.1017 did not work, even after an uninstall of the 7.0.0.1020 driver. However, after reinstalling Windows XP-SP2 and installing driver 7.5.0.1017, the unit performed as advertised. This was repeatable on our DFI P965 board with the ICH8R.We are still looking into why this occurred as it was not repeatable on our P35 board with the ICH9R nor the Intel BadAxe 2 board with the ICH7R. We will publish updated HDTach results shortly. There were not any differences in our actual benchmarks other than the normal variance between benchmark runs that is typically +/- .05%.
Stan11003 - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
I think I could buy a 250GB drive for the cost of this enclosure....JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - link
Which would work great as an internal-only HDD.