HDD by stefan @ 2014-11-25
The Armor A30 2.5’’ USB 3.0 portable drives from Silicon Power are built to last in harsh conditions and the manufacturer has included materials like shock-resistant silica gel which combines with the plastic external shell. Silicon Power also reminds us that the drive has passed the test in compliance with the US military MIL-STD-810G (transit drop test) which means a 300cm experimental fall test.
I would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying a sample of their Armor Series A30 USB 3.0 2TB Portable HDD for testing and reviewing.
“Silicon Power Computer & Communications Inc., founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic specialists in International Business, Global Marketing, and Technical Engineering of flash data storage industry. Well dedicated in brand image and product quality, Silicon Power has been recognized and well accepted by millions of end-users in more than 100 countries, becomes the world's leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, DRAM modules, solid state disks, and portable hard drives in less than a decade. Headquartered in Taipei, we continuously established various branches throughout the world including Netherlands, Japan, Russia, Mainland China and other emerging market to reach the worldwide market.
Silicon Power's overall performance has gradually drawn great attention worldwide. In 2006, we received Taiwan Rising Star Award for our foreign business achievement. In 2008, we won 17th National Outstanding Small & Medium Enterprise Award for our outstanding progress. Moreover, with superior quality and innovative design, our products stood out in several competitions and awarded Taiwan Excellence and COMPUTEX Design & Innovation Award in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Winning trust of global consumers, Silicon Power holds a record of successive double-digit revenue growth for last seven years. According to the Common Wealth Magazine's 2010 Survey of Taiwan Top 1000 Manufacturers, our 2009 revenue growth rate was ranked No.11 among Taiwan's top 1000 manufacturers, and even ranked No.1 in semiconductor industry.
Positioned as Passionate, Creative and Hungry for Success, Silicon Power introduces products for users who are seeking individualized, unique and personal digital storage devices. With the mission of creating unprecedented experience for users, Silicon Power will endeavor to deliver a full range of high quality products that have innovative designs, distinctly unique features and comprehensive after sales services to create and fulfill your personal memory.”
- SuperSpeed USB 3.0 compliant and backwards compatible with USB 2.0
- Meet the U.S. military drop-test standards MIL-STD 810G Method 516.6 Procedure IV (transit drop test), including specific height free fall test (122cm).
- Cable carry design
- Advanced internal hard drive suspension system
- Easy Plug in and use - no external adapter required
- SP Widget free download software, providing 7 major back-up and security functions
- TW Patent:D160484
- Dimensions: 87.5 x 134 x 18.6 mm
- Weight: 181g
- Standard Compliance: USB 3.0 / 2.0
- Data Transfer Rates?Max. 5 Gb/s (USB 3.0 Mode); Max. 480 Mb/s (USB 2.0 Mode)
- Power Supply: DC 5V (Power supplied through USB)
- Supported Operating Systems: Windows 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2000 , Linux 2.6.31 or later, Mac OS 10.5 or later (only USB 2.0 currently supported)
- Operating Temperature: 5 ~ 55 degrees Celsius
- Storage Temperature: -40 ~ 70 degrees Celsius
- Capacity: 500GB . 1TB . 2TB
- Color: Black, White
- Three-year warranty
It is time to re-visit the A30 rugged portable HDD from Silicon power, but now at a much higher storage capacity of 2TB. The manufacturer has fully sealed the packaging in order to provide as much protection as possible during transport. On the frontal part of the box we will get to see the drive itself along with some pictograms which are representing the shockproof characteristics:
We can also check out the main product features in more detail on the back side of the box; here we will also find the product specifications along with the list of package contents and supported operating systems:
After the removal of the top packaging layer, we will end up with one User Manual in multiple languages along with the drive itself, which sits inside a transparent plastic mold:
The drive enclosure is composed of both plastic and rubber materials in order to dampen the vibrations, attenuate shocks; to make things short, the choice of materials provide good protection to the 2.5’’ drive inside:
The rubber frame also comes with routing channels in order to hold the USB 3.0 power/data transmission cable:
In the top corner we have a full-sized USB 3.0 connector:
Here is also a view on the back side of the device; this time the manufacturer has eliminated the frontal texture, but included some pictograms with the supported standards along with the total storage capacity:
In order to get to the inner rubber layer, we will have to remove the four screws, which are placed in the corners of the chassis; we will reveal the 2.5’’ drive which is surrounded by rubber material and is also connected to a small daughter-board:
Silicon Power has sealed the daughter-board connector to the drive with a small warranty sticker:
We are dealing with one Samsung Spinpoint ST2000LM003 2TB drive which is great for storing backups but average to be used as a system drive since the performance is not so great when working with many small files:
The ASMedia ASM1053 chipset provides the interface between SATA III and USB 3.0:
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
Expansion: ASUS U3S6
When powered on for the first time, we will see that the Armor A30 drive comes formatted FAT32, with a single partition:
With the help of AIDA64, we will be able to extract some more information about the drive, which is a Samsung ST2000LM003 drive, with the rotational speed of 5400RPM:
On the drive we have preloaded an utility which helps with the product registration:
A free-to-download utility is to be found on the Silicon Power website, which contains multiple functions to the drive:
The interface of the software is split into multiple sections:
One of the functions is the ability to backup the My Documents folder:
Next, we can sync and backup any folders from the internal drive:
We can always choose to encrypt or decrypt the data stored on the drive:
Also, we can backup My Favorites folder, Outlook Email contents or different tasks:
The software also comes with a “PC-Lock” function:
Some more details about the drives can be found in the “Storage Device Information” tab:
The SP Widget app can be also updated from the same interface:
Finally, with the utility we can also change the language of the interface or scan the drive contents:
The Armor A30 2.5’’ USB 3.0 portable drives from Silicon Power are built to last in harsh conditions and the manufacturer has included materials like shock-resistant silica gel which combines with the plastic external shell. Silicon Power also reminds us that the drive has passed the test in compliance with the US military MIL-STD-810G (transit drop test) which means a 300cm experimental fall test.
For an easier access, the manufacturer has placed the USB 3.0 data cable on the outside of the enclosure, thanks to the bulging silica gels, which are symmetrically built on the outer case.
Thanks to the release of the 2TB 2.5’’ drives, now storage of even bigger files is possible on-the-go and without the need of an extra power adapter like we have the case with 3.5’’ drive enclosures. In this case, Silicon Power is using a Samsung Momentus ST2000LM003 drive which is great for storing large files but a little on the low side of the chart when compared with 7200RPM variants, which was expected.
The new Armor A30 2TB external drives can be found online for about 112 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!