ICY Dock MB454SPF-B Multi-Bay Backplane Module

Introduction

One of the best features about SATA hard drives is that they are hot-swappable (able to disconnect them without powering down the system).  However, not many of us are able to take advantage of this great feature because most of the hard drives are mounted to the 3.5’’ slot and it would be somewhat a burden to take off the side panel in order to remove the hard drives (not to mention that many cases still have their hard drive cage facing to the back of the case instead of rotating them 90 degrees and facing to the side panel to provide easy removal).  The solution for this problem is using the multi-bay backplane module, which basically uses a few 5.25’’ spaces to mount the hard drives, so the hard drives can easily be installed or removed.

A few months ago, I reviewed ICY Dock’s 5.25’’ removable enclosures, I liked the fact that the enclosure is really easy to use and the cool looks.  However, the enclosure only houses one hard drive (which I bet man yof us do), so if you got a lot of hard drives, you would need to purchase many enclosures.  It it not only impratical to do so, but also quite costly.  Luckily ICY Dock also has the multi-bay enclosure to solve this problem.  Today, we’ll be looking at ICY Dock’s MB454SPF-B, a multi-bay backplane module that allows to mount multiple hard drives.  ICY Dock actually sells other multi-bay backplane modules that can accommodate 3, 4, or 5 hard drives.  The MB454SPF-B that we are looking at today utilizes the space of three 5.25’’ to house 4 SATA I or SATA II hard drives.

Product features:

• Drive Fit : 4 x 3.5" Hot Swappable SATA I or II
• Device Fit : 3 x 5.25" device bays
• Internal drive security, exchangeability, expandability and maintenance capabilities
• Compact and space saving for multiple drive fit
• Durable aluminum built cooling
• Huge warm air outtake fan cooling that's detachable
• Advanced drive monitoring system built internally w/ visual & audio indicators

Module Specification: