Just two weeks ago, one of my Hard drives decided to fail, so I decided that I decided to do some research on the best value hard drives and a hard drive backplane that can fit up to 5 SATA drives and fit within a reasonable space.

When I bought my case four years ago, I had just ordered a Intel Quad Q6600 with nForce 680i + GeForce 8800GTX combo, although to be honest, the case itself is the cheapest case I could find at that time. Over time, I added a Raid 0 array of WD Raptor 74s and it stayed in this condition for a very long time.

The problem was that the hard drives were stacked in an aerodynamically inefficient set up, with the cables in a right mess. I’ll probably spend some time recovering the data off my Seagate 120GB drive, but I have finally found a desktop backplane that is not only built well, but also looks the part.

At 98 GBP from Amazon.co.uk, it is not exactly cheap, but the RaidSonic Icy Box IB-555SK is able to pack 5 SATA drives with SATA II (3.0 Gbit/s) , individually locked and an 80mm fan at the back with temperature monitoring.

On Raidsonic.de, the official slogan for the product is that it is designed for the hardest server applications, although I’m installing it in my desktop computer.

The box itself is 2.5kg heavy and padded inside to protect the backplane. The product comes with 5 SATA cables with secure clip (you can’t pull the cable out from the box), 2 error cables, 18 screws, 2 keys for the drives and a manual in 8 languages.

The Icy Box itself is pretty well built, sleek black with detachable fan. The first thing I did was take out two drive slots and mount the two Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives I bought alongside.

Installation wise, after you slot the drive into the correct position, you fasten the drive with four mini screws provided under the drive. The construction is high grade aluminum without sharp edges. Each drive has its own set of LEDs, blue for power, green for usage and red for errors (although I haven’t seen that color yet).

The Icy Box requires 3 5.25″ slots in your case, although you have to make sure that the metal bits usually holding your optical drives aloft don’t obstruct the box first.

I managed to bend and remove those metal bits, although the paint on the side of the Icy Box has taken a battering, as well as my living room turning into a mess. After fitting the backplane into my case, it was definitely worth the effort. I suggest removing the fan first before connecting the SATA cables. The Icy Box itself takes 3x 12V connectors (2 separate connectors are recommended to provide a stable power supply, although my Silverstone PSU is pretty solid).

What I really like after powering up 5 drives is that the lights make any cheap old case look great, especially the Honeycomb grills at the front and the quiet fan. The air is pulled into the case through the grills and keeps your system and the hard drives cool (the 80mm fan is actually level to my Zalman copper cooler and the mini fan for the mainboard).

This is what the front of the computer looks like in operation, I’ve got 2x Raptors, 1x Segate 7200.9 300GB and 2x Samsung Spinpoint F3′s running in the Icy Box. If you are really worried about temperature, the Icy Box has 3 adjustable alarm temperatures for the sensor (45°C, 55°C, 75°C) via jumper and a Stummschalter (Silent Button) at the front.

I have locked all my drives using the keys provided and this is one of the reasons I chose this product over the Cremax Icy Dock (similar price, similar design, but not as cool). Each brand also has 3-slot backplanes for horizontal mounting of drives (although you can only fit 4 drives in those backplanes).

All in all, this would be an enthusiast class product for people that want a  quality backplane for the desktop or server application which is not only functional, but stylish at the same time.

What I really want now is Raid 01 (for which I need another 2 drives for, although I’m out of SATA ports) and a new graphics card, I’m thinking Radeon 5770 due to the low power consumption (Back at NVIDIA I was renting, so I could use the card to heat my room, now I have to pay my own utility bills).