Silicon Power Armor A30
The Silicon Power Armor A30 is reputable in its shock proof design that meets the United States Military (MIL-STD-810G) Standards. The portable storage is equipped with the USB 3.1 connection in uniquely durable plastic design housing. This is enhanced by a silicone rubber that surrounds the internal drives enclosure thus increasing the durability double fold. The device is compatible with the Mac OS X 10.5+ and modern Windows operating systems.
Design
The Armor A30 has a unique blending plastic design with bulging silica gels that are symmetrical on the outer case at the four corners and two are centrally placed. These symmetrical silica gels also transform and act as the exterior slots that cable provided tucks easily and wraps around the case thus providing pragmatism and an idyllic storage solution.
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The device features a super speed USB 3.1 connectivity as well as is backwards compatible with USB 3.0 & USB 2.0. It also has an advanced internal hard drive suspension system which is secured using a 256-bit AES encryption with the SP Widget free download that offers up to seven major back up security functions.
The SP Armor A30 measures 87.5mm by 134mm by 18.6mm and weighs just about 181grams. It comes in two storage capacities of 500GB and 1TB options and the colours available are black and white. The product has a three year warranty from the manufacturer.
Performance
According to the SP Armor’s manufacturer’s specification, the device is said to achieve data transfer rates of 625MB/s maximum while in USB 3.1 Mode and in the USB 2.0 Mode it attains up to 60 MB/s maximum rates.
It uses a Samsung Momentus or Toshiba MQ01ABD100 drive of either 1TB or 500 GB that rotates at a speed of 5400RPM. However, putting the SP Armor to test, the results reveal that the drive attains read speeds of 122MB/s which is not ideally bad for 2.5-inch hard drive. On the other hand the write speeds is 122MB/s for connectivity using USB 3.0 while 2.0 is 36MB/s for reading and 36MB/s for write. All these speeds are for sequential data transfers.
Usability
The Armor A30 can be praised to be a fast, efficient, rugged, relatively affordable and attractive. The speed and efficiency of the drive seem impressive enough but a number of users on amazon are disturbed about the durability. Several users complain that it doesn’t seem as durable as it praised to be. A particular user purchased ten of these units and four of the ten died out and could not work anymore. No matter the efforts of changing the cables, trying in different computers and different ports but none of these options worked.
However, the Silicon Power Armor A30 comes well equipped as the packaging out of the box includes the hard drive itself, a USB cable and a quick start guide to set you up and going. And as its name suggests, it is heavily armored and its double shock protection ensures that it remains safe even if dropped from a height of 3m.
Also check out this youtube silicon power armor a30 review:
Final Verdict
The Silicon Power Armor A30 is an inimitable rugged HDD that is very handy especially for users who have to work on rough terrains and require a device worthy of the shock proof that the SP Armor A30 offers. The device is also fast enough for rapid data transfers through its interfaces and the safety of your data is guaranteed with up to the seven different backup options.
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