We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying their Armor A80 Waterproof & Shockproof Portable HDD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About Silicon Power:

 

"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."

 

Product Features:

 

-Compliant with the U.S. military drop-test standards MIL-STD 810F Method 516.5 Procedure IV.

* The transit drop test is to perform 26 drops on each face, edge, and corner from a height of 122cm above the floor. The drops could be divided among no more than 5 test items.

* Product under normal use meets the test standards. Do not deliberately drop or damage the product.

-3-Meter freefall test.

-Meet the water-resistant standard "IEC 529 IPX7"

* Compliance to IPX7 achieves protection against water immersion within 30 minutes at a depth of up to 1 meter.

* This product can perform well under normal usage, so please do not destroy or throw it away on purpose. In order to achieve complete protection, please keep the USB cap in place when not in use.

-SuperSpeed USB 3.1 Gen1 (USB 3.0) interface

-Anti-pressure and anti-dust function

-Cable carry design

-LED indicates power on and data transfer activity

-Easy Plug in and use - no external adapter required

-Free-download SP Widget software provides powerful functions such as data backup & restore, AES 256-bit encryption, and cloud storage for efficient data management.

 

Product Specifications:

 

Capacity: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB

Dimensions: 139.5 x 94.0 x 18.1mm

Weight: 270-293g (by capacity)

Material: Metal/Plastic

Color: Blue, Black

Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 1 / USB 3.0, USB 2.0 compatible

Supported OS: Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP 64-Bit, Mac OS 10.5.x, Linux 2.6.x

Operating Temperature: 5?-55?

Storage Temperature: -40?-70?

Operation Voltage: DC5V (power supplied through USB)

Certification: CE/FCC/BSMI/Green dot/WEEE/RoHS/KCC/RCM

Warranty: 3 years

 

In this review, we will concentrate our attention upon another waterproof and military-grade shockproof portable HDD from Silicon Power, which takes part of the Armor series and to be more exact, the A80. The product does also incorporate a clever cable-carry solution, that does not occupy extra space when not used and can be found with capacities of 500GB, 1TB or 2TB.

 

Armor A80 is shipped inside a compact cardboard box with a small window, so the potential customer can take a look on how the chassis is constructed, without unsealing the packaging. Here we will also learn of the main product highlights, including the supported USB bus and total storage capacity:

 

 

 

As we have seen with other USB storage products from Silicon Power in the past, on one of the sides the manufacturer has listed an estimation of files we can fit to on the drive:

 

 

 

The back side of the packaging does include a small product description but also the product specifications, in multiple languages:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging layer, we will end up with the cable accessory but also the main product, sitting inside a transparent plastic mold:

 

 

 

The drive enclosure comes with dimensions of 139.5 x 94.0 x 18.1mm, the main chassis component being built from aluminum; on the top area, we will spot a white SP logo:

 

 

 

The sides of the drive are built from plastic; on the right side we will be able to spot the cable-carry compartment, where the USB cable is already fit in:

 

 

 

On the opposite area, we do have the USB 3.1 Gen1 interface, that also features a rubber cover:

 

 

 

 

 

The USB cable supplied with the cable-carry system is very short, so it would be usable only with nearby laptop devices:

 

 

 

On the back side of the drive enclosure, we will get to see the total storage space, logos of the supported standards but also an internal code name:

 

 

 

For usage with other devices, such as desktops, a longer USB cable is also supplied:

 

 

 

By removing two screws on each side of the enclosure, we were able to remove the plastic parts:

 

 

 

The internal shock protection of the drive is assured by shock-resistant silica gel cushions, placed on both sides of the drive; a small board is attached to the drive that converts SATA 6Gb/s to USB 3.1 Gen1:

 

 

 

The internal drive appears to be a WD Blue PC HDD with the WD208PZX code name; the drive has a platter spinning speed of 5400RPM:

 

 

 

Nearby we will also spot the SATA Data/Power gold plated connectors:

 

 

 

On the opposite (top) drive area, we will get to see a large, white sticker that occupies almost the entire surface:

 

 

 

The electrical interface conversion board can be easily removed from the drive:

 

 

 

We can confirm that the ASM1153 ASMedia bridge chipset does support SATA III speeds, so we will have no limitations here:

 

 

 

The testbench was composed from the following hardware:

 

CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail

CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4

Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vector 150

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

When powered on for the first time, we will see that the Armor A80 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 WDC WD20SPZX-22UA7T0, with a platter rotation speed of 5400RPM:

 

 

 

On the drive we have preloaded an utility which helps with the product registration, but also the manual in electronic PDF format:

 

 

 

 

The latest version of SP Widget comes with a simple to use interface:

 

 

 

With it we can perform the following tasks:

 

Backup

 

 

 

Data Encryption

 

 

 

Browser Preferences Backup

 

 

 

Data in the Cloud Access

 

 

 

We can also access the Setup sections for checking out the User’s Manual in electronic format or view the Log File:

 

 

 

 

CrystalMark

 

AIDA64 Disk Benchmark

 

HD Tach

 

HD Tune

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark Vantage

 

The Armor A80 portable hard drive from Silicon Power comes with a premium build, which was pre-tested in order to be compliant with U.S. military drop test requirements, meets water resistant standard IEC 529 IPX7, transforming the product in a water, pressure, vibration and dust resistant model. While for the 2TB version we have found a WD Blue 2.5’’ 7mm PC HDD inside, the drive is surrounded by a shock-resistant silica gel in order to protect it from damages.

 

In terms of drive performance, if we do not write a lot of data at once, the 128MB of cache and firmware implementation do bring quite a bit of boost, impressive in some situations for a regular, platter drive. We dare to say this only for the 2TB model of the Armor A80, since we do not know which HDD models do the 1TB and 500GB variants incorporate.

 

The Armor A80 2TB external drive can be found online for about 160 Euros, more expensive than the competition, but remember that this product comes with extra features, for people that will use it in less-than-ideal conditions!

Silicon Power Armor A80 Waterproof & Shockproof Portable HDD is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!