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

The metallic shell definitely speaks tough and confidence. However whenever I gave it a shake (especially vertically), there was always some movement. It appeared easy to open, as there were only four philips screws. After couple of minutes the two side plastic panels were out, hard drive then easily slid out. Its pretty much a bare bone hard drive with a small circuit board to provide SATA to USB interface. However there is no protection around the outside of the circuit board, so if you drop it face down, there is a good chance that it may crack. The hard drive also wiggle a little bit when being shaken. Regarding the water proof, the weakest link is the USB port, which only offers a small rubber cover, which is rather loose. If you dont close it tightly, water will definitely find its way in. Im kinda worried by the effectiveness of those protection.

I have a gaming laptop and kinda have a problem of dropping my external hard drives. I wanna play in the living room then move to my bedroom and sometimes my external hard drives like the seagate ones would slide off and fall like 2 ft and never work again. So i ordered this thinking it would help since its armored. But so far so good. Speeds are fast when putting stuff on external hard drive. Comes with 2 cords and they are usb to usb so no android like port basically 2 usb flash drive ends to each cord end :). I just got this today and hopefully it will work as intended

If you really care about your data, DONT TRUST THIS DRIVE! I dont care what others say any drive will work when it hasnt been tried by fire. They all work great setting on a desk or pillow but this drive was meant to hold up against the, God forbid, accident so you buy a drive that meets military specs hoping that when that does happen it will hold up. THIS DRIVE DOESNT. This drive was attached to my MacBook Pro not even running when our cat ran by and hit the USB cord that connected it. I initially didnt panic or worry for it only dropped one and half (1 1/2) feet to a carpeted floor and didnt even make a thud but did pull the USB cord from the drive and disconnect it from the computer. When reconnected though that fearful sound of the click, click, click disk drive failing let me know this drive was not toast. IF YOU CARE about your data then choose a drive that does hold up and do what it says it will and that is the Military spec Transcend drive also sold by Amazon. If though you want to throw your money away and buy a drive thats no better insulated against accidents then this drive may last you a few months but just know you better have yet another backup for this drive is HORRIBLE and I only wish I could give it a half star or 1/10th star. At least Ill know NEVER TO BUY ANOTHER SILICON POWER DRIVE. RUGGED Armor? more like aluminum foil rather than armor. Again Its your choice but I hope you dont have to learn the hard way AS I DID! *********************** UPDATE ************************************* While the drive still seems to have some movement within the case I was able to get to show up on a Windows Computer and was able to reformat it and the Windows computer then showed it as a good drive. Moving it to the Macintosh computer it showed up as a working drive and when tested it tested as GOOD. Its storing files again so while I still have HIGH SKEPTICISM for this drive I will alter my review to three stars from the ONE before. I am though leaving the previous review as I worded it but will say that the company Silicon Power, did provide great communication and was more than willing to service the drive and they remain so with the only cost being shipping on my part. Really thats super customer service. ONE OTHER humble admission. As one other commentator stated I should have ordered the other Silicon Power drive that was military tested for drops rather than this one which is more for weather/water resistance. While that is part my fault the wording of their advertising and stating it as ARMOR was a little misleading to make me think that this drive was more drop resistant than other like capacity drives. Still given the very short/small distance that the drive dropped and the very soft landing area that it landed there really (my opinion mind you) should not have been a 100% data loss event happen. While the Mac Computer, using the Drive Utility that come with Macs indicated that the the drive could be recovered and repaired the actual end result was that reformatting (loss of data) had to occur before the drive could be used again but at least it could be used again which is better than a total loss. The product linked to, after this review, is most likely the product I should have ordered in order to get the most drop resistant drive.

Just received this today. I looked through many similar products and their reviews before purchasing this. It will be traveling with me everywhere and will probably get beat up a bit, so I went with the military grade. Ill update this review if anything goes wrong. The two different length USB cords are great, both connected the device with my laptop and it was instantly recognized with no problems. Plus, theyre blue, which will make them easy to find in whatever bag they wind up being in. My only issue, and the only reason for a docked star, is that after unwrapping and opening the packaging, I found the hard plastic packaging within the container already torn open. This leads me to believe this is a REFURBISHED device, instead of a NEW device which I paid for. Further, when opening the folders already on the device (for registration and whatnot), 2 folders are dated 2012 and 1 is dated 2014. I am not at all happy that I paid for a new device when it appears that what was shipped is refurbished, but I have registered it and will immediately contact the company if I have *any* issues with it - and will update this review accordingly. Looks good and works well so far though.

I am replacing a Western Digital Passport 1tb. It was also USB 3.0 but required you to plug it into the wall. It was also much larger/bulky. The worst problem with the WD is that it would not stay on. It would either time out, or overheat, i dont know but sometimes it would only stay on for 5 seconds before it would shut down and ALWAYS in the middle of a file transfer. It took me about an hour and half to transfer 750 MG from that drive to this drive because it kept shutting down. the Silicon has NEVER shut down and only take a second to show up mounted in my computer and stays on like it should. File transfer is fast and consistent and especially fast when transferring to a SSD. Love it.

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.

I have been shopping for the right external hard drive for the last year but never found one I wanted until I found the Silicon Power line. This drive actually far exceeds my needs as I dont expect to drop it off of the roof of my house or leave it out in the rain, but at the same time I felt it couldnt hurt to have that kind of protection. I chose the 1TB Armor A80 which has all the space I need for my photos and my MP3s. It writes and reads very fast with the USB3 connection. While I was researching the specs I could not find reference as to whether or not it worked with Windows 8.1 but several Amazon readers answered that question for me (it does support W8, W7, Vista, XP and 2000 etc) So far I am very pleased with this drive and think its a great value at a mere $80.00. I do recommend this for anyone looking for tough capable storage.

This nifty little guy is very high quality and rugged. The chassis(case) is an alloy and is very durable. This unit doesnt feel cheap at all. The speeds of the drive are all spot on and was tested. The cord is small but is very dense and will not go bad any time soon. If the size of the cord is an issue then I suggest buying a longer usb 3.0 cord . The hard drive itself could be swapped out very easy( 4 - Philips head screws) if you wanted to. The hard drive will all the 2.5 form factor hard drives except the 15mm ones. I am not worried about failure of the hard drive while this thing is banging around my messenger work bag. I have dropped the hard drive a few times and without issues the drive works at 100% and tested every time I dropped it. The unit claims to be water proof. From what I have seen from opening up the enclosure that it does it fact look as if it could be water proof for a certain amount of time or depth. I have not tested if this unit is in fact water proof. But if I spilled my drink on it I would not be worried after seeing how it is sealed. packing was professional shipping was fast and easy as always.

Ive been wanting to get one of these Armor A80 for awhile, finally got around to it. First off I really like the design of this hard drive, it is looks extremely simple but looks good and feels very sturdy. The small cable enclosed on the side is extremely handy. Just got it the other day and already unintentionally tested the ruggedness of this hard drive, I went rock climbing and the A80 was sitting in a little pocket in my backpack when it fell out. It was about a 80-100 feet drop and at that time I didnt even know it was the A80 that fell out, I thought it might been my bottle or something else. When I went back down I saw the A80 on the ground and I was like crap... I usually take out everything from my backpack before I go rock climbing but in this case I forgot. I brought it back home thinking its most likely not going to be working anymore after a 100 feet drop onto solid ground. To my surprise it ran like nothing at all happened to it, all my files were still there and no weird sounds or anything. Im amazed, I havent tested if it submerge in water but I assume it can, this is one heck of a rugged hard drive. Also another amazing perk is that Silicon Power is doing a promotion on their face book page, you get a $15 Amazon gift card if you buy it now until early February I believe. I just sent in my invoice so I should be getting a response soon. If you buy one I recommend you searching for silicon power usa on facebook, you have to be a fan and then you can send in your invoice for a free Amazon gift card. Forgot to mention that the case did get a few dents from the drop but not as bad as you would expect from a 80-100 feet drop onto solid ground. I will try to see if there are any cases for this hard drive, keep you guys updated.

Im a professional wedding photographer and I needed a portable external hard drive to maintain all the work that I am currently working on in my current season. After the work is done it gets backed up to a RAID system but I like to keep another copy on a portable hard drive. The problem with other drives? They are complete crap! I have tried Seagates FreeAgent Go Flex (1.5TB) and the bridge/connection is worthless. I had one drive fail, had to buy Seagates proprietary software to recover my files ($120!) and then sent it off under warranty for a replacement. The replacement was even worse. The connection again is so bad that I literally cant move (or move it) or the connection will be instantly lost. Sometimes it doesnt make a good connection and tells me the disc needs to be formatted. Western Drive isnt any better. First of all they are bulky and most arent meant to be portable. The case is cheaply made and the metal connector to the USB after several plug-ins will detach from the plastic case and then you have to send it in to get another. So far, with my unit, I have no complaints. It works quietly, I feel comfortable about the case it was encased in and have had no data issues with it. It also still maintains the ability to be portable and light. I havent tried the water test yet, however, I rarely would be using it in a pool or lagoon as the other equipment I use is not waterproof at all, but its a very nice feature to have in case of such a situation.