New ToughArmor rugged drive enclosures from ICY DOCK, your storage enclosure specialists!

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ICY DOCK is the leading expert in data storage enclosures and accessories.

 

 

Introducing ToughArmor

ToughArmor is ICY DOCK’s rugged enterprise-grade line of 2.5” SSD and HDD enclosures, utilizing the standard external 5.25” bay, external 3.5” bay (floppy bay), and the slim optical bay (ODD bay). All ToughArmor models feature ruggedized full-metal enclosures and trays, to keep your sensitive data protected, as well as meeting many flammability requirements. It features many high-density storage options, supporting as many as 16x 2.5” drives, or as few as one. Models are available to support SATA, SAS, and now, U.2 NVMe drives, giving you flexibility in choosing drives that work best for you. The strength and build quality of all of our products is backed by a full 3-year warranty against all defects. ToughArmor is used and approved by Tier 1 companies such as Hewlett Packard (HP), General Electric, NASA, as well as the US Armed Forces. For more information on our ToughArmor line, read our ToughArmor documentation here. Links to all of the products discussed here can be found in the documentation. All ToughArmor products can be view here.

 

ToughArmor for SATA 3.5” / 5.25” Bays

For SATA and SAS drives installing into 3.5” and 5.25” bays, we have a large number of options available. In the 3.5” bay, there are models that support one to three drives, some with features such as key-lock trays and hardware RAID capabilities. The larger 5.25” bay supports between four and eight drives in a single bay, and up to 16 when using two bays. These denser options offer cooling fans, to keep the large number of drives cool under heavy load. These models have a wide array of uses. The MB991U3-1SB is our portable ToughArmor unit you can take anywhere, and works over USB. The MB992SKR-B is a 2-bay model with a hardware RAID chip, with modes for RAID 0, RAID 1, BIG, and JBOD.

 

There are also our more traditional drive carriers that install into a single 5.25” bay. While these models don’t have USB support or a RAID chip, they still have direct SATA connections, the full-metal enclosure, and the 3-year warranty.  The 4-bay (MB994SP-4S), 6-bay (MB996SP-6SB), and 8-bay (MB998SP-B) models are perfect for any general applications that require hot-swappable SATA hard drives and SSDs in a dense storage enclosure.

 

 

ToughArmor for NVME

Recently, ICY DOCK has released the first-ever hot-swap cages for U.2 NVMe drives.  U.2 drives use the standard 2.5” size familiar from SATA SSDs, but utilize the NVMe specification allowing for transfer rates of up to 32GB/s. ICY DOCK U.2 NVMe cages come in one and four bay models, and utilize a single Mini-SAS HD connection for each drive. The single-bay model (MB601VK-B) fits in a single 3.5” bay, great for space-limited tasks that require only a single drive.  Small-form-factor systems, DVR systems, and photo/video editing systems can benefit from high-performance storage in a small space. If you need more drives, the 4-bay model (MB699VP-B) is the one for you, and even works great in RAID setups.  These are used in datacenters around the world, that need dense NVMe based storage. Both of these models use a Mini-SAS HD port / cable for each drive, so make sure to prepare your system with enough Mini-SAS HD ports.

 

 

ToughArmor for Optical Drive Bays

ICY DOCK also has several drive cages that fit into slim (12.7mm) and ultra-slim (9.5mm) optical drive bays. These can serve to replace existing drive readers in laptops and desktop systems, and can also be paired with several of our 5.25” bay brackets. Perfect for space-critical applications that require drives to be installed in the smallest possible space. Common uses are in Small-Form-Factor PCs, media PCs, Home Theater PCs (HTPC), and security footage systems. In industrial uses, these are often found in 1U and 2U rack-mounted systems with limited space availability, and portable workstations/laptops.

 

 

If you have any questions about the models mentioned here, or anything else, send us an email at tech@icydock.com. We offer first-class customer support for all our products, from pre-purchasing info, product selection help, walking you through installation, and issue troubleshooting. In addition to email, we offer phone and live web-chat customer support, which can be found here.  Our knowledgeable support technicians are available Monday-Friday from 10:00am-5:00pm PST.