I have been reviewing portable hard drives since long and have seen them evolve. They used to be plain boring before; then they became trendy and fashionable. The one which I have for review today is a military grade rugged drive that should be a perfect companion for the road warrior, and yet it looks very elegant. I am talking about the Silicon Power Armor A30 with a huge 1 TB capacity and the super-fast USB 3.0 interface. Silicon Power has been around for quite some time now in the field of storage and I have previously tested USB Flash drives manufactured by them. I therefore have high hopes from this drive and this review will try to find out whether or not those hopes are fulfilled.
Packaging
The drive comes neatly packed into an attractive box with protective packing inside.
Bundle
Features
Packaging
The drive comes neatly packed into an attractive box with protective packing inside.
Bundle
- Silicon Power Armor A30 1 TB
- USB cable
- Quick Start Guide
Features
The Armor A30 appears eerily similar to a double-sided axe head when viewed casually with rubberized bulges on all four corners. These orange corners actually serve to protect the drive in the strong black polymer casing by absorbing shock on impact. The black casing has a tiny pattern of hexagons like a honeybee hive, signifying the strongest geometrical shape in nature, pointing to the rugged nature of this drive. The scratch-resistant surface is such that it doesn't gather fingerprints and is quite resistant to dust as well.
As the name suggests, it is indeed heavily armored and has been tested to survive direct drops on hard surfaces with a two-level shock protection. In fact, it meets U.S. military drop-test standards MIL-STD-810G (transit drop test) with anti-shock technology. In a layman’s language, this means that it has been allowed to free fall drop directly onto concrete from a height of 1.22 m on each of its six surfaces, eight corners and twelve edges. I dropped it from over 1.5 m for over a dozen times and it continued to work perfectly fine. Of course, you should avoid dropping it while it is powered up.
Although the drive is quite slim, you may not be able to carry it in an ordinary pocket, but it can be easily slipped into your coat pocket. At 181 grams, it is quite light and portable and therefore carrying around in your pocket is easy.
The rubberized protrusions on the edges have a slot to accommodate the USB 3.0 cable while storing or carrying it around. This is good in a way as there is less chance of the USB cable getting lost if it is lodged into this slot after use.
The USB 3.0 socket is present at one end and it appears just like a normal USB 2.0 port but with blue colouring and additional connectors.
As the name suggests, it is indeed heavily armored and has been tested to survive direct drops on hard surfaces with a two-level shock protection. In fact, it meets U.S. military drop-test standards MIL-STD-810G (transit drop test) with anti-shock technology. In a layman’s language, this means that it has been allowed to free fall drop directly onto concrete from a height of 1.22 m on each of its six surfaces, eight corners and twelve edges. I dropped it from over 1.5 m for over a dozen times and it continued to work perfectly fine. Of course, you should avoid dropping it while it is powered up.
Although the drive is quite slim, you may not be able to carry it in an ordinary pocket, but it can be easily slipped into your coat pocket. At 181 grams, it is quite light and portable and therefore carrying around in your pocket is easy.
The rubberized protrusions on the edges have a slot to accommodate the USB 3.0 cable while storing or carrying it around. This is good in a way as there is less chance of the USB cable getting lost if it is lodged into this slot after use.
The USB 3.0 socket is present at one end and it appears just like a normal USB 2.0 port but with blue colouring and additional connectors.
A power LED is present underneath the translucent surface near the USB port to indicate power and data transfer. The LED glows blue when connected to a USB 3.0 port and red with a USB 2.0 connection.
The drive boasts of a 1 TB capacity, which is more than enough for most purposes. There is a 2.5-inch Seagate Momentus ST1000LM024 1 TB 5400 RPM laptop hard drive with 8 MB cache, inside the enclosure.
Software
The drive boasts of a 1 TB capacity, which is more than enough for most purposes. There is a 2.5-inch Seagate Momentus ST1000LM024 1 TB 5400 RPM laptop hard drive with 8 MB cache, inside the enclosure.
Software
The included software are SP Widget for Windows 7/8 and Norton Antivirus trial version. You can also download a Windows widget for the drive with functions such as backup, data encryption for specific folders, and PC Lock. This widget also lets you update the software and to avail of the special offers with this drive such as the free download of a 60 days trial version of Norton Internet Security.
Performance
I used benchmarking tools such as HDTach RW, HD Tune, and CrystalDiskMark to gauge the drive's performance. I also tested real world data transfer speeds.
Test system used:
Intel Core i7-2600K
ECS P55H-AK Black Series
Corsair XMS 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
A-DATA S592 128 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768 MB
I tested the hard drive in two different scenarios. First, I connected the drive to the USB 3.0 port using the USB 3.0 cable. Then I connected the drive to a USB 2.0 port to get an idea of the performance benefits of USB 3.0 port.
HDTach RW 3.0.1.0 is a low-level test that does not require the hard drive to have a file system.
Performance
I used benchmarking tools such as HDTach RW, HD Tune, and CrystalDiskMark to gauge the drive's performance. I also tested real world data transfer speeds.
Test system used:
Intel Core i7-2600K
ECS P55H-AK Black Series
Corsair XMS 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
A-DATA S592 128 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768 MB
I tested the hard drive in two different scenarios. First, I connected the drive to the USB 3.0 port using the USB 3.0 cable. Then I connected the drive to a USB 2.0 port to get an idea of the performance benefits of USB 3.0 port.
HDTach RW 3.0.1.0 is a low-level test that does not require the hard drive to have a file system.
For USB 3.0
For USB 2.0
HD Tune Pro: A hard disk benchmarking utility capable of performing lower-level as well as file system benchmarks, and displaying the result in the form of a graph. I ran the read as well as the write tests to measure the transfer speeds, burst speeds, and access times across the entire drive and obtained the results as in the figure.
For USB 3.0
HD Tune Pro Read Benchmark
HD Tune Pro Read Benchmark
For USB 2.0
HD Tune Pro Read Benchmark
HD Tune Pro Read Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark: This is a benchmark to measure read and write speeds of external hard drives and Flash drives. We have chosen a 100 MB data sample with 5 repetitions to measure data transfer speeds.
Real World File Copy test: I copied 4 GB of assorted and sequential data to and from the drive, and obtained the following results:
It can be seen that the sequential speeds as well as assorted file transfer speeds are excellent and as expected. It is very clear that this drive is ideal to copy large files such as movies, games, image files, etc. in a very short time, unlike USB 2.0 drives which take very long.
The drive runs cool and was silent throughout the duration of the test.
My Verdict
The Silicon Power Armor A30 1 TB is indeed a uniquely rugged hard drive exhibiting overall good performance. The drive can absorb a good amount of punishment and still works as good as new. While the USB 3.0 speeds are blistering fast, the USB 2.0 speeds are not bad either, in case you are stuck with legacy computer ports. This drive aptly makes use of the USB 3.0 interface to its advantage. The SP Widgets software provided with the drive is also complete with seven different utilities including backup and security. While it is extremely rugged, it still manages to look good and remain lightweight with portable dimensions.
The Silicon Power Armor A30 1 TB is available for Rs 5175, which is a very good deal for what you get. If you can't stretch your budget so much, then you can opt for a 500 GB version for Rs 3750. The A30 comes with a three years warranty. Most 1 TB hard drives are more expensive and still they do not come with rugged features that are incorporated into the A30. 1 TB is good capacity for most purposes including carrying large amount of data or backing up your entire system and I wholeheartedly recommend this rugged portable drive.
Pros: Extremely rugged build, Super-fast USB 3.0 performance, Capacity, Looks good, Backup and security software, Good price.
For USB 3.0
For USB 2.0
Real World File Copy test: I copied 4 GB of assorted and sequential data to and from the drive, and obtained the following results:
It can be seen that the sequential speeds as well as assorted file transfer speeds are excellent and as expected. It is very clear that this drive is ideal to copy large files such as movies, games, image files, etc. in a very short time, unlike USB 2.0 drives which take very long.
The drive runs cool and was silent throughout the duration of the test.
My Verdict
The Silicon Power Armor A30 1 TB is indeed a uniquely rugged hard drive exhibiting overall good performance. The drive can absorb a good amount of punishment and still works as good as new. While the USB 3.0 speeds are blistering fast, the USB 2.0 speeds are not bad either, in case you are stuck with legacy computer ports. This drive aptly makes use of the USB 3.0 interface to its advantage. The SP Widgets software provided with the drive is also complete with seven different utilities including backup and security. While it is extremely rugged, it still manages to look good and remain lightweight with portable dimensions.
The Silicon Power Armor A30 1 TB is available for Rs 5175, which is a very good deal for what you get. If you can't stretch your budget so much, then you can opt for a 500 GB version for Rs 3750. The A30 comes with a three years warranty. Most 1 TB hard drives are more expensive and still they do not come with rugged features that are incorporated into the A30. 1 TB is good capacity for most purposes including carrying large amount of data or backing up your entire system and I wholeheartedly recommend this rugged portable drive.
Pros: Extremely rugged build, Super-fast USB 3.0 performance, Capacity, Looks good, Backup and security software, Good price.
Cons: None.
Rating:
Rating:
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