HDD by stefan @ 2023-04-10
The Armor A85B 2TB USB 3.2 Gen1 Portable HDD from Silicon Power does employ a WD Blue 2.5’’ drive, which makes good use of the 128MB of caching preinstalled on its board; in certain workloads, it can offer very good transfer speeds, but only when writing very small quantities of data to the HDD, otherwise it will behave the same as a regular 2.5’’ 5400RPM.
We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying their Armor A85B 2TB USB 3.2 Gen1 Portable 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."
One Tough Nut to Crack
Featuring the highest level of protection, the Armor A85B is an impenetrable fortress. A sturdy internal suspension system, seamless rubber covering, and robust aluminum casing result in a triple-layer construction that's 500kg pressure-resistant and 3m military-grade shockproof. It's tough enough to keep your data safe and sound from drops, bumps, or pressure – because accidents happen.
Sealed Tight with IP68 Protection
With its ultra-tough and seamless casing, the Armor A85B is also IP68-rated for extra outdoor protection. This means it resists dust penetration and can withstand water immersion of up to 1m depth, so it's airtight sealed to keep out two of the most common threats to a drive. This makes it the perfect place to store or access your data when you're out in the wild.
Nothing To Lose with This Design
Are you one to constantly misplace cables when you need them the most? The Armor A85B's design has your back with a handy built-in cable-carry band because, wherever you need to access your data, the cable should be right there with you.
Super-Speed USB 3.2 Gen 1: Edit, Transfer, Move On
With super-speed USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, the Armor A85B delivers swift read and write speeds. This cuts the time needed to edit or transfer large files, including HD graphics and videos, to get the job done faster so you can move on to the next project.
Capacity: 2TB
Dimensions: 132.5mm x 92.3mm x 25.9mm
Weight: 298g
Material: Aluminum + Rubber + Plastic
Color: Black
Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 3.1 Gen 1 & USB 3.0, USB 2.0 backwards compatible)
Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP, Mac OS 10.5.x, Linux 2.6.x
Operating Temperature: 5C - 55C
Storage Temperature: -40C - 70C
Operation Voltage: DC5V (Power supplied through USB)
Patent: TW Patent No. D172227, M513441
Certification: BSMI, CE, FCC, KC, EAC
Warranty: 3 years
In this review we will look upon another USB Portable HDD from Silicon Power, taking part of the Armor series and to be more exact the A85B; this drive can come with capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 5TB and includes a solid chassis for resisting tough environments: dust penetration, water immersion up to 1m of depth, being IP68-rated for extra protection.
The Armor A85B Portable HDD is shipped inside a compact cardboard enclosure; on the frontal area we will note some of the main protection highlights, along with the supported USB bus standard and the total drive capacity:
On the side, we will get to see an approximation regarding the total of multimedia files we can fit to the drive:
Some more details on the protective chassis are detailed on the opposite area:
On the back, we will get to see a small product description in multiple languages, the technical specifications, some details on the Silicon Power Service centers but also the product internal code name along with the serial number:
After removing the top packaging layer, we will note that the drive does sit inside a transparent plastic mold, while the hardware bundle is the USB cable:
The Armor A85B drive employs an USB-A to USB-A cable solution, for additional durability:
The all-black chassis comes with an aluminum exterior, which includes inside an internal HDD suspension system for achieving 500kg pressure resistance and 3m military-grade shockproofing:
The cable-carry strap comes with a red SP logo on the side:
The side with the USB connector is made from plastic, but padded with rubber on the inside:
The USB port is carefully protected with a cover:
The thick rubber padding can be seen on the cover as well:
Near the rubber strap, we will note a code, but also the name of the internal HDD manufacturer, Western Digital:
On the opposite side, we will note the secondary plastic cover with the list of supported standards:
Here is the cable-carry strap in action!
The test system did incorporate a AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-core CPU, a Sabrent Rocket 2x16GB DDR5 4800MHz C40 memory kit, a PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5700 video card but also a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 2TB SSD; all these were connected to the BIOSTAR X670E VALKYRIE AM5 motherboard. As a power supply we have chosen a Cooler Master 850W non-modular and the system was running the latest Windows 11 OS build as well.
When powered on for the first time, we noted that the drive was already formatted NTFS:
With the help of AIDA64, we will be able to extract some more information about the drive, which is a Western Digital Caviar Blue WD20SPZX, with a platter rotation speed of 5400RPM and 128MB of cache:
On the drive we will find the manual in electronic PDF format, but also an utility which aids the registration procedure:
The Armor A85B 2TB USB 3.2 Gen1 Portable HDD from Silicon Power does employ a WD Blue 2.5’’ drive, which makes good use of the 128MB of caching preinstalled on its board; in certain workloads, it can offer very good transfer speeds, but only when writing very small quantities of data to the HDD, otherwise it will behave the same as a regular 2.5’’ 5400RPM.
For testing the speed when writing a large 10GB file, we used Total Commander; this shows that for this workload, the WD drive falls in-line with products from other manufacturers:
Besides performance aspects, the Armor A85B performs as its name suggests: protects the drive against water and dust, sporting an IP68-rated casing.
The 2TB version of the Armor A85B can be found online for about 88 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!