Introduction

I would like to thank Icy Dock for supplying the review sample.


Icy Dock has made a name for itself with products aimed at enterprise and government applications. As such, most of their offerings provide uncompromising build quality centered around steel and utilizing interfaces like U.2. The Icy Dock EZ-Adapter MB031U-1SMB, however, is a lot more end-user centric with its use of plastic as a housing and SATA based interfaces, even if its name is quite the tongue twister.

A Closer Look

It is quite unlikely that you will find an Icy Dock products on a physical store shelf, so the MB031U-1SMB ships in nothing but a plain brown box with a single sticker to let you know what is within. A bubble wrap bag provides some protection out of the box.


You will get a really sturdy USB-C cable alongside a basic usage guide. The cable is quite thick and feels of really high quality. That said, it is really short for most usage scenarios.


The device itself, on the other hand, with its all-plastic housing is quite light and provides a bit of a stark contrast to what we are used to seeing from Icy Dock. The top sports large branding, another thing we usually don't see a lot on their other products. On the underside, two rubber pads ensure that the unit stays in place on smooth surfaces. We tried taking it apart as there are screws underneath each of the pads, but Icy Dock seems to also weld the housing together by way of a plastic pin in the center, underneath the sticker, so pulling it apart would result in breaking it.


The rear sports a USB-C connector, so you are free to use a longer cable you may have lying around. The classic SATA port is exposed in the front, while the M.2 SATA connector is recessed on the top of the EZ-Adapter MB031U-1SMB. Icy Dock could have made the enclosure bigger and recessed the classic SATA port as well for additional protection, but as long as you treat it like you would the bare drives it powers, there is no real need for that.


Icy Dock has placed a large, sliding and color coded on/off switch to the top of the adapter and equipped it with a blue LED that turns on accordingly while blinking when a drive is being accessed.

Use and Performance

We got ourselves two identical Kingston A400 SSDs to use with the MB031U-1SMB, which is probably a good use case for those pulling these drives from notebooks or PCs for the ability to access them via an external connector like USB.


Connecting the drives to the MB031U-1SMB is quite straight forward. in case of the 2.5" drive, simply plug it into the connector and you are essentially good to go. Attached, the drive lies perfectly flat with the MB031U-1SMB, so there is no unnecessary strain on the physical interface.


Utilizing an M.2 SATA drive means simply sticking the drive into the port on top of the MB031U-1SMB. Unfortunately, the main side of the drive faces away from you; thus, all you get to see on our single-sided SSD is the bare PCB.


You may dock both drives to the MB031U-1SMB at the same time without worrying about frying any of the components. However, in such a configuration, only the M.2 SATA will be visible to the host system.


A quick look at CrystalDiskMark reveals that both the 2.5" on the left and the M.2 variant on the right perform as expected when attached to a Windows-based system via the USB-C interface, loosing just around 10% performance at most in the process. The on/off switch works just fine as well, but simply unplugging the MB031U-1SMB at any given time posed no issues either.

The Icy Dock EZ-Adapter MB031U-1SMB come with an MSRP of $49.99. Considering the dual-functionality of the unit, you are able to find a 2.5" SATA to USB 3.1 interface adapter for around $15–$20, but an M.2 SATA dock is decisively harder to find. That said, there are a few M.2 SATA and NVMe based docks out there. However, those also cost well over $50 on their own, which makes the price of the EZ-Adapter MB031U-1SMB justifiable. With SATA drives being quite affordable, odds are the MB031U-1SMB will cost more than any such drive you buy these days, so it may not be the best option for those only needing a once-off access to their drive. On the flipside, those who will deal with drives like these on an ongoing basis will find the MB031U-1SMB to pay for itself in no time.