HDD by stefan @ 2010-11-08
The Nobility Series NH01 External HDD, is an interesting backup/data transfer solution from ADATA, using USB 3.0, but also fully USB 2.0 compatible. The enclosure has a professional look and the product itself is excellent for people that are frequently on the go.
At first I would like to thank ADATA for allowing us to test their Nobility Series NH01 USB 3.0 External Hard Drive.
"The World's Leading Memory Brand
Foundedin May 2001 by Simon Chen, who serves as Chairman and CEO, ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. is committed to providing top-notch memory solutions that enrich the customer’s digital life. The company’s dedication to integrity and professionalism has made ADATA the leading memory brand with the most award-winning product designs.With DRAM modules as its initial product focus, ADATA soon recognized the market trend and expanded its product portfolio to include Flash applications and data storage solutions. Backed by technical expertise, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, and premium customer service, ADATA offers complete memory solutions including DRAM modules, USB flash drives, memory cards, solid state drives and portable hard drives. The company’s endeavors to meet the demands of users have given rise to ADATA becoming the world’s leading provider of memory modules and Flash application products, holding the 2nd and 3rd largest market share in DRAM modules and Flash application products, respectively (iSupply, May 2010).
ADATA understands that professionalism and innovation, as well as the value of its products and services, drive a company’s competitiveness in the market. ADATA’s devotion to quality requires performing at the highest standards as they relate to ID design, purchasing and supply-chain management (raw materials), manufacturing processes, quality control and testing. Through constant innovation and development of products that exceed customer expectations, ADATA has won many of the most recognized international awards including the National Silver Award of Excellence in Taiwan, Japan’s G-MARK (Good Design Award), CES Innovations Award in the U.S., the iF Design award, and the red dot design award in Germany.
A Young Enterprise with Remarkable Growth
Starting in 2001 with only 20 employees, ADATA was from the very beginning a small company with big dreams. The company’s commitment to becoming a worldwide leader in providing DRAM memory and Flash application products led to ADATA distinguishing itself from the competition by its commitment to professionalism, industry know-how and eye-catching product designs.Under the leadership of founder Simon Chen and the senior management team, all who have extensive memory-related industry experience in manufacturing and global sales, ADATA operates with passion and energy, governed by extraordinary corporate values that serve as the foundation for the company’s success. These values include integrity, fairness, honesty, perseverance, ingenuity, harmony, love and innovation. All these factors help contribute to remarkable and consistent year-on-year revenue and profit growth, thus driving ADATA to achieve $1 billion in sales turnover within its first ten years.
Perfection through Non-stop Improvement
Despite these impressive achievements, ADATA’s management team is determined to outperform itself. In 2010, ADATA began the process of rebuilding its brand, adopting the hummingbird as its corporate icon and an auxiliary symbol of ADATA’s corporate culture in order to effectively enhance its competitiveness in the international marketplace, as well as to prepare the company for the next decade.The new logo conveys a more modern design that represents consistency, while retaining the foundation of ADATA’s technical background with the traditional corporate color in blue. The hummingbird incorporates key design elements that reflect ADATA’s culture, vision for the future and their commitment to becoming a global brand. The hummingbird’s agility suggests that ADATA is highly responsive to market and consumer demands; its swiftness demonstrates leading innovation and productivity in the industry; its exploring nature signifies ADATA’s determination to pursue all possibilities; the color and modern design reflect the exciting and dynamic characteristics of the ADATA brand.
Strong Commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility
Realizing the need for social responsibility, ADATA takes extra care in the selection of key memory components, complying with stringent manufacturing specifications and quality inspection processes. ADATA has received ISO14001 certification on environmental management and the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. These measures demonstrate ADATA’s dedication to providing the safest, most efficient, stable and compatible high-performance memory products. The company’s steadfastness to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is crucial at a time when ADATA is pursuing rapid growth, thus placing equal emphasis on both protecting our earth and remaining a green enterprise."
Ultra-fast Performance
Adopting USB 3.0 interface, ADATA Nobility Series NH01 USB 3.0 2.5” Portable Disk Drive enables data transfer speed by 3 times to USB 2.0. For example, it may take 15 minutes to transfer a 24 GB Blu-ray movie via USB 2.0 interface; with the Nobility Series NH01 2.5” HDD’s built-in SuperSpeed USB 3.0, you’d wait only 4.6 minutes for the entire transmission –saving up to 70% of the average time it takes to accomplish the task.
Simplicity in Style, Freedom in Accessibility
The glossy piano black finishing seen on the front panel gives the NH01 HDD its sense of style. Along with its compact 15.7 mm casing, the NH01 combines data mobility and elegance, making it your best mobile companion.
Powered by USB 3.0, Compatible with USB 2.0
The Nobility Series NH01 2.5” HDD embraces the next-generation USB 3.0 standards while maintaining fully backward compatibility with USB 2.0 devices.
Smart Power: The Means for Total Protection
Known for being top quality and their remarkable performance and innovative designs, ADATA portable hard disk drives have more than “hard power” to offer, notably the most valuable software.
The OStoGO tool assists you by converting your Microsoft Windows 7 Installation DVD to ADATA portable storage devices, providing you the convenience of being able to quickly install Windows 7 via USB Booting without the need for an optical drive.
The powerful HDDtoGo tool synchronizes data, e-mails and your Favorites, affording you true mobility.
Norton Internet Security 2010 (60-day trial) safeguards your data from viruses and other harmful processes. Registering your ADATA product online gives you this protection for free.
The Nobility USB 3.0 external HDD from ADATA comes packed inside a transparent plastic enclosure; right from the start, we can see how the case of the product does look, and on the front we can also get information regarding the total capacity, the product code name and its data interface:
On the back of the box, we can see the product specifications and description in multiple languages, but also the box contents along with the serial number:
Along with the manual, the rest of the components are found inside a plastic casing:
The included manual shows us how to connect the drive to our computer, with the included cable; here we are also reminded that we can download for free, the HDDtoGo application located on the ADATA website:
The USB 3.0 included cable looks different compared to the USB 2.0 ones we used in the past:
The enclosure is shiny, mostly because of the acrylic and it picks up dust and fingerprints; it can be cleaned, though, easy with a soft cloth; the name of the product along with the company name can be found here:
On one of the sides, we can see the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port:
The bottom of the product is black and we can see in the middle the serial number; here we can also see 4 little plastic feet, which are made to allow ventilation under the product and to avoid scratches to the case:
Right after we connect the drive with the supplied cable to a spare USB 3.0 port, the blue activity LED will light up:
The testbench was composed from the following hardware:
CPU: Intel I7 Retail @ stock
Motherboard: Foxconn BloodRage with G42 BIOS
RAM: 3x2GB Patriot PVT36G1600LLK 1600MHz
Video: Sparkle GTX 470 with stock and OMNI A.L.C.
Power Supply: Nexus RX-8500 850W modular
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11
Case: Thermaltake Armor+ LCS, stock cooling
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
ADATA offers for download for free the HDDtoGO application, which has similar features as the UFDtoGO application, for the USB Flash Drives:
The drive arrives unformatted; we can easily format and partition it with the Windows Disk Management utility:
Here is the total free space reported after the drive has been formatted NTFS:
With Everest Ultimate Edition, we can extract more information from the drive and we find out that the HDD inside is manufactured by Samsung (model Spinpoint M7):
The Nobility Series NH01 External HDD from ADATA is one of the USB 3.0 products from the market that succeeds to deliver good performance, keep the noise down and remain cool during usage.
The enclosure is meant to be used at home or at the office and looks very nice. ADATA advises us in the little manual that comes with the product to use a free-download value-added application, HDDtoGO, that lets users work remotely from the drive without leaving any data behind on the host PC.
The device is fully compatible with USB 2.0 but produces lower transfer speeds compared to the Hitachi PortableDrive 500GB tested in the past. If USB 3.0 is used, then the performance increases a lot, cutting the time needed to transfer the files into the drive or extract them in more than half.
The product can be found in stores for about €55, which makes it a solution to consider, if we need a device to transfer lots of information from one system to another, or to backup important data.
I would like to thank ADATA for allowing us to test their latest products.