TWEAKNEWS "Dream Hard Drive Enclosure" CONTEST

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

OVER $800 IN PRIZES!!!

Tweaknews has joined up with ICYDOCK to offer our readers a chellenge and a contest for readers to submit their idea of an ideal dream hard drive enclosure.

The rules are simple:

1.) You must login and register here on the Tweaknews forums and post your creation.

2.) You must post what special features you need and you must post an illustration of the enclosure. Be creative.

3.) You must contribute at least 5 legitimate posts here on the forums not including this thread.

4.) IP's will be logged so multiple accounts from the same poster will be disqualified with no warning.

5.) Addresses will need to be supplied after the contest so we can send you your prize!

PRIZE LIST!!
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First Place

One - MB561US-4SC - Quad Bay External Enclosure with eSATA (port multiplier) + USB 2.0 Interface w/ JBOD express card - MSRP: $349.99

Tweaknews Review Here:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/icy_dock_mb561us-4s_enclosure/

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Second Place

One - MB662UEAB-2S - Dual Bay Screwless External RAID Enclosure with FireWire 400, 800 + USB 2.0 Interface - Built-in RAID 0/1/BIG/JBOD - MSRP: $199.99

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Third Place

One - MB662US-2S - Dual Bay Screwless External RAID Enclosure with eSATA + USB 2.0 Interface - Built-in RAID 0/1/BIG/JBOD/SAFE33/SAFE55 - MSRP: $129.99

Tweaknews Review Here:

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Forth Place

One - MB881US-1S-1 - Traveling 3.5" & 2.5" SATA Hard Drive Docking Station with eSATA + USB 2.0 Interface - MSRP: $54.99

Tweaknews Review Here:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/icy_dock_mb881us-1s-1_hard_drive_docking_station/

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Special Prizes for other submissions we thought needed a prize.

Five - MB882SP-1S-1B - 2.5" to 3.5" SATA / SSD Converter with Screwless Design - MSRP: $19.99

Tweaknews Review Here:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/icy_dock_mb882sp-1s-1_sata_converter/

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Contest runs until June 15th at 12pm midnight. One submission per person.
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x.clay · Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 10:18 am Post subject:

I'm kicking around some ideas for this contest. Hopefully I can come up with something good!

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

That's great! Good luck with it.
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x.clay · Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:49 am Post subject:

thanks, I'm not sure if I am going to try to learn Google Sketchup or just sketch it up by hand. I'm kinda limited on time so it will probably end up as sketch/drawing but I will make it look nice

Bummer168 · TweakNOOB Joined: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 2

Almost done here. I will post some works soon.

x.clay · Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:28 am Post subject:

I don't have access to CAD at home so I am going to call this done. I would like to keep working on it but I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is a dual hard drive RAID enclosure. The enclosure can hold two standard 3.5" drives. I thought about designing this around SSDs but they don't have 1T SSDs yet (or if they do I would probably have to sell a kidney to get one) so I decided to stick with standard 3.5" drives.

I have been following a couple of black and orange case mod worklogs and I love the look so I decided to incorporate that color sceme into my design. The enclosure is made of black brushed alluminum (no plastic). The side panel has a laser etched design that is illuminated with the enclosure is powered up. There are two 80mm orange LED fans (I love Xigmatek fans) to keep the drives at a nice constant cool temperature. There are vents along the back of each side panel to vent warm air from the enclosure.

There is a LED panel to monitor temps, drive capacity, read/write speads, disc fragmentation, fan speed, LED brightness, etc. You can configure the enclosure to automatically keep the disks defragmented and optomized. That way you don't have to slow your computer down by running disk defrag in the background.

The enclosure transferred data to the PC through a beefy cable and PCI card adapter. It also has standard USB, Firewire 400 & 800, and eSATA connections to make it easier to set up on other computers.

Thanks for the contest. I enjoyed stretching my imagination a little and look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with. I'm sure people will post some great ideas that I will wish I could go back and incorporate into my design but I guess that is the disadvantage of being the first to post a contest entry

mojo1340 · UberTweaker Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 1022

Nice!

tanka12345 · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 3:36 am Post subject:

Looking great! Very Happy

When does the competition exactly end?

x.clay · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:57 am Post subject:

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Contest deadline MAY BE extended. Seems a lot of people are having troubles hitting the deadline due to being busy with school.

I'll consider it this evening and update the thread accordingly.
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tanka12345 · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:23 am Post subject:

I'd really appreciate an extension.

I'd really like to enter, but I just haven't had enough time lately.

x.clay · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:09 pm Post subject:

I kinda like my odds the way things stand right now

but there are a bunch of good prizes for this contest so I can understand an extension. If there is an extension I guess I will have some more time to refine to entry.

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Ok, contest is extended till June 30th at midnight.
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Bummer168 · TweakNOOB Joined: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 2

Designed by 3D cad, I have also put ICY DOCK logo in.I might submit another one if I have time~

tanka12345 · Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:27 pm Post subject:

My Entry:

tanka12345 · Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 12:35 am Post subject:

Here's the description of my idea. Sorry I couldn't get it up with the picture, but I didn't have enough time.

Above is my entry called "Paradice" by IcyDock. Please View the images in 100% for the best results, and please ask if you have any trouble viewing them.

The Paradice HardDrive Enclosure is in my opinion my Dream Enclosure.

It contains two parts. The Internal Enclosure where your most valued data will be stored on your Drives, and the External Enclosure which the internal one will be housed inside for added protection.

The Internal Enclosure houses four 3.5" HDDs and six 2.5" SSDs which include rubber mounting hardware to reduce the impact of shock, and to reduce the noise produced. The Enclosure is fashioned from an Aluminum Ceramic Composite allowing it to be relatively light while resisting fire and being watertight/airtight. Inside the internal section, the internal electronics are housed in the bottom right corner. The unit contains and internal PSU eliminating the need for a huge external PSU on the power adapter, a UPS Backup system allowing the unit to shut down the HDDs/SSDs safely in a power cut, and will work for up to 10 minutes @ Full HDD load, and a compact refrigeration unit which keeps the drives at a constant 10 degrees Celsius increasing drive longevity. Note that the temperature can be changed via the touchscreen display on the external enclosure.
Lastly there is a lockable door which is made of the same Aluminum Ceramic composite, and again is fireproof, and features a watertight/ airtight seal.

The external enclosure acts as a “house” for the internal enclosure. This adds a double layer of protection to your drives within, and the external enclosure contains I/O features and most of the internal circuitry. Firstly we have a LED Touch Screen display on the top side, containing vital statistics such as the Time, HDD Temps, Drive Status, UPS power status etc. You can also make changes using the screen such as changing HDD temp or setting the time to match the country you are in. Next to the screen in an ON/OFF button. Inside the enclosure we have some internal electronics including a built in RAID controller making it easier to create RAID setups, a wireless antenna supporting Wireless A,B,G,N, MI-MO 2.4/5.0GHz and Bluetooth 3.0 (with backwards compatibility with Bluetooth 2.0). To store the data required for the SSD there is 8GB of on board flash memory which can also be used to store some vital data on for extra piece of mind. To assist with the onboard operations on the drive the Paradice enclosure features a Dual Core 1GHz CPU and 128 DDR2 memory. The CPU and memory can also be used to assist drives when transferring data improving the read/write speed. Next on the right hand panel of the enclosure there are various I/O ports including the AC Input, 6 USB 3.0 ports, 2 FireWire 400/800 ports, 2 e-Sata ports and although not pictured it would ideally include up to 6 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Next to the AC input there is an ON/OFF switch. These ports are covered by a lockable door when not in use. In empty cavity of the enclosure there is exactly enough space for the internal enclosure to slot it. When slotted in, the internal enclosure will act as the “heart” of the two enclosures as it will contain your Drives, and the Paradice unit has been designed to keep your data safe in the event of a fire, flooding, theft or even a fall! Lastly there is a Double Glazed reinforced door which is lockable. Note that the doors on all parts of the enclosure require different keys for optimum security.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the Paradice enclosure! I sure had fun designing it. I wish I was better at SketchUp so I could make it in 3D, or I wish I knew how to make it with CAD software.

If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask. The design isn't perfect so I am sure to have missed something.

Thanks,

Tanka

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

contest is closed. Winners in order will be selected tomorrow.

thanks for all the hard work guys!!!!

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x.clay · Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:36 pm Post subject:

good luck everyone

tanka12345 · Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:28 am Post subject:

Good luck everyone Very Happy

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

ok, after chatting with our lead reviewer, we have come up with the winner, second and third place.

We had to be fair by following the rules set forth at the start of the contest. Due to one rule stating that a minum of 5 posts being required to be eligible, one of the three submissions had its ranking dropped to last place due to the other submissions following and exceeding the rules set in place at the start of the contest.

The placings are as follow:

1./ x.clay
2./ tanka12345
3./ bummer168

Please pm me your address so I can arrange your prizes.
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x.clay · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:16 am Post subject:

thanks for the contest and congrats to the other winners! Very Happy

tanka12345 · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:56 am Post subject:

Thanks and congratz everyone! Very Happy

Xal · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:03 am Post subject:

Congratz guys. bummer168, tough luck with the rules.
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tanka12345 · Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:04 am Post subject:

Any news on shipping?

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406