We were amazed at how quickly the ice maker filled up. Within 30 minutes, it was full, which is a small cooler's worth of ice cubes. Excellent option for inexpensively filling up a cooler. You definitely need a place to store the ice to keep it frozen for a long period of time. It is also pretty quiet. We noticed that id does kick a bit of heat out of the back of the unit while in use; good thing we had the A/C to counteract the heat. The ice cubes are small and hollow, easy to crush if desired.