HDD by stefan @ 2018-05-15
The new Armor A75 USB 3.1 external HDD does come with a professional looking chassis, which is also very light thanks to the aluminum build, impact resistant up to 1.22m and can operate between 5 and 55 degrees Celsius. It does also come with an USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C interface and the 2TB capacity should fit most user needs for backup purposes.
We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying a sample of their Armor A75 2TB USB 3.1 HDD for testing and reviewing.
"Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data.
Because memory is personal."
Stylish Grooves
Get ahead of the game! It's the thinnest shockproof hard drive of its kind - 100% aluminum, pure and simple. The stylish yet rugged ridges strengthen the structure which reduces impact and scratch damage. Truly where durability meets design, just grab it and go.
One of a Kind
Don’t let the sleek aluminum exterior fool you. The A75 is shockproof up to 1.22m (MIL-STD 810G 516.7 Procedure IV transit drop test) and made with lightweight material. So it's both temperature and impact-resistant. Ready for accidental bumps before you are, it's tough.
Behind the Design
Revolutionizing PHD construction as we know it, the A75 continues the Armor series' legacy of safe and durable data storage while showing off its appealing and aircraft inspired design.
Travel Confidently
With up to 2TB of storage for your most important files in such a slim drive, nothing needs to be left at home. Travel light and enjoy high-speed data transfers with its USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface, brilliant.
The Devil is in the Details
The slim "L" shaped LED status light can be seen from most angles because it’s placed right below the SP logo on the front face of the drive. Advanced levels of protection and attention to detail make the Armor A75 ready and waiting to go everywhere your data needs take you.
Silicon Power has recently released a full-aluminum USB 3.1 portable HDD in order to fit your backup needs while on-the-go; not only it does pack a very stylish enclosure, but also is shock resistant thanks to the rugged ridges and internal structure. The product is shipped inside a small cardboard enclosure with a small window, so we can have an idea on how the product does really look like, without the need of unsealing the box:
The manufacturer has included an approximation of multimedia content that should fit on the drive, depending on the SKU (capacity):
On the backside, we will get to see a small product description, the technical specifications, but also package contents, supported operation systems along with some online resources and the product serial number:
After unsealing the box, we will find the main product, along with its bundle:
The supplied manual does come with the hardware installation instructions, but also some words regarding the warranty:
The drive is quite light at about 169 grams and has the following dimensions: 124.4 x 82 x 12.2 mm. The aluminum gives it a professional, stylish look and is rated as shockproof up to 1.22m -> MIL-STD 810G 516.7 Procedure IV transit drop test:
The unit is also provided with a white activity LED, while the USB 3.1 interface is Type-C:
The bottom layer of the enclosure does feature a similar design and here we can also spot four screws that keep it together:
After removing the bottom aluminum cover, we will get to see a middle pad that keeps the HDD fixed, but also a large rubber gasket for vibration dampening:
The complete removal of the drive outside the case is a little bit difficult, because of the included adhesive pad:
The small PCB is the adapter that provides the SATA to USB 3.1 Type-C interface:
Coming back to the drive, Silicon Power has used a ST2000LM007 2.5’’ drive with a SATA 6Gb/s interface; it supports 1ms non-operating shocks of 1000Gs and 2ms operating shocks of 400Gs, it features a rotational speed of 5400RPM and a cache of 128MB:
Here is also a view on the back, which shows the drive PCB, along with the motor contacts cable:
We will get a fully-braided USB cable with this model, same as we have seen with the Bolt B80:
The testbench was composed from the following hardware:
CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail @ stock
Motherboard: BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X
RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 4x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)
Video: Sparkle GTX 470 with stock and OMNI A.L.C.
Power Supply: Nexus RX-8500 850W modular
HDD: OCZ Vertex 4 240GB SSD
Case: Thermaltake Armor+ LCS, stock cooling
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64
When powered on for the first time, we will see that the Armor A85 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 Seagate ST2000LM007-1R8174 drive, with the rotational speed of 5400:
On the drive we have preloaded an utility which helps with the product registration:
The latest version of SP Widget comes with a simple to use interface:
With it we can perform the following tasks:
We can also access the Setup sections for checking out the User’s Manual in electronic format or view the Log File:
The new Armor A75 USB 3.1 external HDD does come with a professional looking chassis, which is also very light thanks to the aluminum build, impact resistant up to 1.22m and can operate between 5 and 55 degrees Celsius. It does also come with an USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C interface and the 2TB capacity should fit most user needs for backup purposes.
Thanks to the internal ST2000LM007 2.5’’ drive with a SATA 6Gb/s bus, the transfer speeds are good and we did really enjoy the quality of the internal construction, in order to prevent vibration. Armor A75 does come with a 3-year warranty and is also available with a 1TB capacity.
The Armor A75 drive from Silicon Power is priced affordably: the 1TB version can be purchased for about 57 Euros, while the 2TB version for about 85 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!