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View Full Version : Unused Bays In Icy Dock MB454SPF-B

1up2down
10-15-2007, 05:37 AM
I just found this forum by reading a very good review on a Icy Dock MB454SPF-B. However, it still left me with few unanswered questions. I am not wanting to use the unit in RAID. What I really want to do is use only one hard drive at a time, occasionally two. Storing the others in unused bays until needed. So I tried connecting SATA cables to only two of the bays thinking this would leave the other two bays inactive. However, there appears to be power supplied to the disconnected bays. What I need to know is, does this mean that the hard drives in those two bays will actually be running and wearing out unnecessarily. Would it be better to simply leave all the hard drives running all the time.
'Amp!'
10-15-2007, 04:34 PM
This thread has been relocated to the appropriate section.

Good luck with your question. :icon_tiphat:
Victor
10-15-2007, 06:53 PM
yes, I beleive so. You may try to only connect the hard drive power for the slot which you have the active hard drive and see if that works. Though I probably would recommend you just keep the unused HD outside of your system
1up2down
10-16-2007, 12:55 AM
yes, I beleive so. You may try to only connect the hard drive power for the slot which you have the active hard drive and see if that works. Though I probably would recommend you just keep the unused HD outside of your system

Thanks, I tried that and couldn't understand why it had two power sockets when either of them were capable of feeding all the drives, perhaps to spread the load on that flimsy circuit board. As for removing the drives when not in use. This presents it's own set of problems. The drives only have side rails fitted which offer no protection, and therefore would require very careful handling and storage. But even so, that defeats the whole object of having a multi-bay caddy if the drives are being stored elsewhere.

If only they made it clear in their ads that these Icy Docks were intended for RAID only.