AkG
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Tagan Icy Box JBOD Hard Drive Enclosure Review
Manufacturer Product Page: Tagan
Product Number: IB-3220STU-B
Availably: Now
Price: Click here to Compare Prices
Warranty: 2 years
Not everyone who is interested in external storage enclosures wants, needs or even desires RAID. Yes RAID is a great idea for external enclosures, but it is not the best for all situations. In fact many people just want a big enough, fast enough external enclosure that is also durable enough to be relatively portable. To this market segment adding RAID complexity is just a frivolous accessory which adds to the price (and thus remove the "cheap enough" part from the equation). Let’s face it, when you add in a RAID controller the price has to be higher than a comparably designed non-RAID enclosure. The only time this will not be true is if you are comparing different manufacturer’s products and then as the old saying goes "you (usually) get what you pay for".
To further divide this already niche market, a lot of consumers do not want to buy an “all in one” or “plug and play” device which comes with its own hard drives; rather, they want just an empty enclosure so that they can choose their own hard drive as their budget and preference dictates. To even further split this already niche market into even a smaller niche, not all consumers are interested in single bay enclosures. Maybe they like the idea of having two big and fast hard drives in one box, maybe they plan on doing a poor man's RAID and simple copy everything from one hard drive to the other just in case a drive fails (i.e. RAID 1 done manually), either way they want a product which offers value for their money
If you are thinking that this must be one heck of small market niche you would be wrong. While it is a niche of a niche, it’s a frickin’ huge market to begin with and a small slice of a big pie is still a big old slice of profit to the company who is willing to listen to their customers. This is where the Icy Box line distributed by Tagan comes in since this product line contains value-oriented consumer enclosures that cater to the non-Raid wanting segment of the marketplace.
TAGAN opened for business back in 2001 when (the now) founding fathers met each other at a dinner party during Taipei`s Computex show. At the time they were all professionals from all over the world (Germany, Japan & USA) and during that fateful party they discussed what the perfect power supply would be. The rest they say is history and now Tagan not only makes power supplies but has now also branched out into many other facets of the computer industry as well.
As with many companies which want to break into a market niche, Tagan has opted for distributing an otherwise unavailable product. Namely, the Icy Box line is made and distributed in Europe by RaidSonic who owns the IP and trade marks on the whole Icy Box line. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, RaidSonic does not have any presence in the North American market. This is where TAGAN comes into the picture. Today we will be looking at the black Icy Box IB-3220STU. This enclosure is a dual bay non-RAID 3.5" SATA hard drive enclosure which connects to a computer via USB. The IB-3220STU-B is available from many online e-tailers at a fairly reasonable price. So what does your hard earned money get you, and more importantly did Tagan make the right decision on picking the Icy Box to distribute? Let’s find out!

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