Silicon Power 1TB Rugged Portable External Hard Drive Armor A80, Waterproof USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, Xbox and PS4, Blue

There are a couple of nice things about this unit. First is that it is a single connector drive. Not tried it in a USB2 plug, but with USB3, it works really well. Transfer speeds (moved 80 gigs initially of everthings from small jpgs to large video files) with a Windows 8 maching. Speeds varied from just over 1 gig per second (for small jpgs) to a small amount over 80 gigs/second for the larger video files. 15 meg raw photo files were around 50 meg/second. Not exactly sure what the limiting factor is here, but I have a really fast USB pen drive that records the exact same speeds, so I suspect the bottleneck is not the hard drive, but something in the computer. Nice that you get two USB cables (one short that stores with the unit and one longer one). Dont know how long it will last, but is very nice right now.

Shipping, packaging, functionality, performance, styling, SPEED, durability... Everything is TOP NOTCH. This is produced in Taiwan (not China), by a very reputable company, and this product backs up everything that is advertised about it. I love the design, especially with the extra cable built in. I transferred a 2 gig program from my laptop to this using the USB 3.0 cable via a USB 2.0 port in about a minute and was floored. the same program to my thumb drive took about 15 minutes. I now keep over 30 gigs of pictures backed up on this thing, as well as all my homework (ACAD drawings) Ive never had anything corrupted or fail to load. Accidentally dropped it on the asphalt from waist height and other than a small nick in the paint on the corner you would never know. only CON is that it doesnt come with a case, and it was too big for the case I bought for it. Any suggestions on a successful case purchase would be appreciated because I love this beast.

I used this primarily as a TimeMachine backup drive for my MacBook Air while backpacking in East Asia. It stayed as it is (no extra protective case) in my backpack while trekking through the Himalayas, through airports, tossed in and on and out of dirty, dusty, and muddy buses, daily usage in the deserts and during rainstorms, and weeks in huts on beaches. Never once did I take extra care to protect it. I didnt care much for the USB holster situation, but it kept the cable secure so Ive come around to appreciating it. It got wet, dropped, tossed, and generally abused for 6 months of backups and general usage (e.g. video playback direct from the drive). Nearly a full year after returning to the States, its still my backup drive and sees at least weekly use.

Ive only had this a couple of days. I had a little trouble with the registration application information on the drive itself, but that was taken care of by an email to vendor support. It was truly plugnplay on my Windows 7 laptop. Speed seems quite good. However, I have been implementing Bittorrent drive encryption on it (to protect my business data), and it took about 24 hours to implement it.. I like the fact it includes a short cable (as well as a longer one), and an internal (sort of) place to store the cable. Encryption time was a bit of a surprise, but since thats about twice as long as my 500GB internal hard drives, Ill assume its the OS and not the drive itself. Form and fit are very nice, and the finish is an attractive blue paint that appears (so far) resistant from scratching. I do not know if its the fastest USB3 drive yet, but speed seems very good. RECOMMENDED.

It works good. Transfer rate seems to be fast, compared to what I am used to, all perspective I guess. I have not done the drop test to verify how rugged it really is, and havent dropped it yet, by accident, so I cant help anyone with that. It comes with a super short cord, and a long one, bout 2 1/2 feet, I could use a longer one, but I have heard its special, because of the ends, so I dont know if that is possible. I bought it also, because the price is good for a rugged 1T, by silicon power. I am happy with it, so far, after 1 month.

My Product Review and Photos published @ UMLan dot Com! Check it out for more Details! Enjoy! Today, we have a product that we can compare ruggedness with the hummer in its unique tests. It is portable, small, and a beast to most people that are familiar with the HDD storage market. In this competitive market, the product does stand out from the rest because of its proven features. This little beast can endure water and physical abuse, where many just cant. UMLan would to thank Silicon Power for providing their all enduring show off portable hard drive which consists of a traditional 2.5 9.5mm 1TB hard drive inside, they call this little beast the Silicon-Power Armor A80. Most of us say Eh... Some of us say Wow! well let me break down some cool little features for some of you. As many and most enclosures, they are all the same, True! but what cant the rest do?! Most of us purchase HDD enclosures by design, features, and how cheap the enclosures are compared to in pricing. They all do the same but some may show differentials in Transfer Speeds and Design, the Armor A80 states one question and directly states it is a small battle tank, UMLan would like to Thank Silicon-Power for providing us the opportunity to test and try out the product, lets check out the details and performance tests. The benching software used are ATTO, CrystalDiskMark, HD TACH, and HD Tune Pro which has been included. ATTO benched @ 2GB file size, CrystalDiskMark @ 4GB file size, HDTACH @ 1GB file size, and HDTUNE PRO @ 40GB file size. Overall benchmarks resulted in the same average score and stability for most USB 3.0 transfer speeds, the sequential read and write levels @ 116/112 MB/s, Random 512KB read and write levels @ 36/39 MB/s, Random 4KB read and write @ 0.4/0.7 MB/s, and Random 4K + Queue Dept of 32 read and write for NCQ and AHCI levels @ 0.49/0.70 MB/s. Adding this storage device to my collection, I see that the Silicon Power Armor A80 can perform stably amongst most other portable hard drives in the market with a strong punch by adding additional rugged support for security during accidental physical and abusive damages even from liquid. Currently I am working on an introduction test video to reveal the Silicon Power Armor A80 Portable Hard Drive, the video will introduce to the product in addition to multiple endurance tests, physically abused!! Stay tuned!!! The Silicon Power Armor A80 1TB portable hard drive is just like all others in the market with additional rugged support regardless of being kicked around, drowned, and fully neglected. Through these overall abusive tests, the Armor A80 can certainly endure the wrath of my physical tests as you will see in the coming video. The overall performance resulted in transfer speeds relatively similiar and respected just like most others. Silicon Power uses the Asmedia AS1051 processor, which we can usually tell by now a days, those that are unfamiliar with Asmedia, they are one of the first few USB 3.0 chipset certified manufacturers in this technology. The overall design of this unit is fairly sleek, ergonomic, and holds a solid quality feel to the Armor A80. Today we thank Silicon Power again for sending over proof of what this portable hard drive can do as well as securing our data for the rest of our lives. Now, it all just depends on when the HDD will EOL, not the Armor A80s tough and rugged protective casing. UMLan would like to provide the Silicon Power Armor A80 portable hard drive a score of 9/10 for the following pros and cons listed below.

This is very easy to use, just plug in, wait for the installer to do its thing and you can get to work. Would recommend not having any other type of flash drive connected when you first plug it in. Nearly had a heart attack when I did and then tried to access my flash drive. It looked like it had been wiped. I unplugged it and reattached it, and it came back normal, bit still could have done without the panic. I havent needed to test the durability of it yet, but it feels and looks like it will live up to the claims.

It is fast and has tons of space in a fairly small package. BUT - About once a day it exhibits unstable behavior that usually forces me to (temporarily) live without the data on the drive, or restart my computer. Im running it with a one-year-old HP laptop, and heres th feedback my computer gives me: 1. You need to format Drive H before you can use it 2. USB device not recognized 3. The drive or network connection that the shortcut refers to is unavailable 4. One of the USB devices connected to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognize it. 5. Unknown device needs troubleshooting 6. Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43) 7. Try reconnecting the device. If Windows still does not recognize it, replace the device. So far Ive gone to the manufacturers website to download drivers, and spent hours searching online for possible solutions - but to no avail. So, if you want an occassional-use drive to store some infrequently used files (and youre computer-savvy), this drive will give you bang for your buck. If you want access to the files on a regular basis, be prepared to restart your computer.