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

I needed an external drive and Id heard about their spectacular fail rates. Im a person that breaks stuff, so this was a problem. I stumbled across this thing, which is supposed to be me-proof. While Im happy to say I havent tested that claim TOO extensively, it certainly has been the victim of my carelessness a few times and still works just as described. Its been about four months now and Ive had no problems with it. It is really fast and Im very fond of the extra cord they stuck in the side (you can see it in the product pictures). I leave the longer cord plugged into my desktop and just use the shorter cord for when Im porting it around. If you want an affordable external, portable hard drive, this is it. If you want one that can take a beating, this is also it. If youre not sure if you need a durable one, but do want a cheap one, you might as well get the inexpensive one that is also capable of taking the beating -- this one.

This hard drive looks decent, like the pictures. It is a bit heavy, which is to be expected from a rugged hard drive. The first one I received only showed up about half of the time when plugged into a USB port. I thought that it was a driver problem, but I tried it on 3 different PCs after installing the driver, and it showed up more and more infrequently. Finally after a month it stopped showing up at all, which was just beyond the amazon return period, unfortunately. I was able to receive an RMA number from the companys website, and I mailed the defective unit to Hong Kong (which cost about $12). About 2 weeks later I received a new (or refurbished?) drive, which seems to work well after the first couple of weeks. I was impressed that the company replaced the defective product with a reasonable effort on my part.

Received the hard drive a couple days after Christmas. Its formatted for Fat 32, but a quick right click and reformat and you can change it over with a problem. I normally see transfer rates varying from about 47megs a sec to upwards of 85. I cant attest to its toughness as of yet, but it has had some liquid spilled on it and it managed to survive. The only thing Im not a huge fan of is the covering for the USB port, its a bit of rubber that forms a good seal, however when you pop it off - its connected by only a small amount. If the plastic portion were to break, liqued could run into the device. However, that hasnt happened yet, the device has preformed well.

The Silicon Power A80 combined with a USB3 is an incredibly fast read/write drive. It is well constructed and so far totally silent in running. My reason for 4 instead of 5 stars deals with the software package. If you intend on using this as a backup hard drive you will probably end up using your own back up software rather than their downloadable SP Widget programs. I found it too limited on a number of fronts. With their software: you can not password protect just the A80 (you have to lock both your computer and the A80); there is no incremental backup option; there is no one button backup. After talking with their tech support who confirmed these were not possible on the A80 but were possible with some of their other hard drives, I dumped their software and used my own back up software. However I find this a reasonable trade off for the ruggedness of the A80. Hopefully down the road Silicon Power will offer a better full function back up software to use with this unit.

The price for this rugged 1tb portable hard drive was very appealing along with the fact that it was the only one that was shock proof and water proof. Not that I am in a high shock or flood potential zone however, anything extra offered in a device such as this and for a cheaper price than the popular WDs and Seagates is refreshing. And to top it off, it is USB 3.0! It came with two USB cords, one very short one, which actually fits into a slot in the side of the unit. Another longer USB cord also comes included. It came formatted in FAT, but all it took was a quick format as NTFS and I was good-to-go. Perhaps the only negetive, which has no bering on the product itself is that it should, or could have come with some sort of stand. I have this unit connected to my home network via my wireless router for storage and access from outside the home. Therefore, it is always plugged in to my router and I would like it to be propped up as my seagte is, which sits in a cool cradle. I will definitely be looking into purchasing more products from Silicon Power!!

I picked this drive because of its military style ruggedness and of course its size. I used to carry in my bag external hard drives with much thinner casings and with the odd stuff I usually carry it has put dents in the casing. My first Silicon Power drive died on me after 29 days.......thank Goodness it wasnt 31 days. I exchanged it for a new one. This one seems to be holding up and I havent taken it on the road yet. I use it strictly as a back up for half of it and data for the other half. It has been sitting on my desk and so far is doing what it is supposed to do. I think it is an excellent drive. The interface probably died on the previous one. Hopefully it does not happen again.

Its a good addition to any Windows laptop that nowadays come with limited solid state storage.

I was looking for a hard drive to make backup of documents stored in a Hitachi hard drive of my 10-years old desktop. This hard drive Silicon Power rugged armor A80 1-TB 2.5-inch with USB 3.0 worked flawlessly since the first time it was connected to the USB-2.0 port of the laptop through the USB 3.0 cable attached (blue cable). This drive did not get warmed, it was cool all time when working and turned on a blue light in the USB-3.0 port. All my computers works with Windows XP SP3. The desktop has a Intel D815EEA motherboard and does not have USB-2.0 port, only USB-1.1 ports, so after it was installed a new USB-2.0 4-ports pc-card, the hard drive started to make the backup with no problem and pretty fast. I began working with this drive since January 04,2012. Now, I can go anywhere with all my documents and proyects with no fear to lose them.

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.

Bought this drive as a mobile file transfer and backup solution, and it certainly hits all the bullseyes in that capacity. First, the enclosure is entirely matte anodized aluminum, not the combination of plastic or rubber that I initially thought. This means it is quite substantial, but still light, and seems like it can take some abuse during travel (I hope so, given what it is sold as). Next, the drive inside is essentially silent with only a slight humming vibration when placed on a hard surface. Where the rubber meets the road, it transfers files very fast. Much faster than my Seagate-based, AC-powered USB3.0 externals! This comparison to my other USB3 externals brings up the only negative about the drive, and why I docked it 1 star - the included USB 3.0 cables! Shown in the images is the very tiny (3 inch?) cable that fits into the slot on the outside. This little one is great next to laptops or anywhere you have a hub or easily accessible port, but for my big desktop, I needed to dig into the box for the (also included) 20-something inch cable. Cant use my other USB 3.0 cables because this drive has the same connector as most host devices (Type A - the big ones), while most other devices use an A-B cable, with the smaller B connector going to the device. At least I dont need to worry about which end is up! With that as the only negative, I think this is a great 1TB bus-powered drive for the money, and the ruggedness is a bonus. I wont be throwing it into a lake or dropping it from a moving car to test that out, but its nice to not have to think about it.