Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Icy Dock has two fantastic and innovative products on their hands with the MB664US-1SB enclosure and "The Hybrid" PCI-slot accessory. The MB664US-1SB provides an easy way to add external storage to a system through either eSATA or USB, with the safety and cooling of an aluminum enclosure. "The Hybrid" provides an easy way to connect eSATA enclosures to a system without having to worry about adding eSATA PCI cards and finding a free outlet to power the unit. "The Hybrid" provides both an eSATA and 12 volt power connections to connect drives with.

The drive isn't advertised with Linux support, but our testing showed it to be every bit compatible with Linux. All "The Hybryd" does is bridge a SATA connection without any sort of data manipulation, so there's little reason that the drive wouldn't work in Linux. BIOSLEVEL.com hopes that Icy Dock will add Linux to their support Operating Systems soon.

After initial testing was completed, I found an additional use for "The Hybrid". Using an old ATX case, I added three SATA hard drives and three "The Hybrid" units to the case. There isn't a motherboard or powersupply in this case. On another computer, I have four eSATA connections. Running three SATA cables and three power cables from this machine to the empty case gave me three additional hard drives in a tower enclosure. It's an interesting trick, although possibly impractical. I'm sure a few modders out there could find a better solution.

Both the MB664US-1SB and "The Hybrid" are fantastic products, and truly unique innovations from our friends at Icy Dock.

Pros

• Enclosure has both USB and eSATA connections
• "The Hybrid" provides from eSATA and power connections
• Both are fully compatible with Linux
• Both are incredibly easy to install and use

Cons

• Enclosure runs a little hot