Side by Side Comparison of: Silicon Power

I have dropped a few times and still working

This was an early Christmas gift for my hubby. He LOVES it. He said it was so small and easy to use. He backed up files from his lap top and then about a week later he had problems with his laptop. He was so pleased that he had backed everything up the week before so he did not lose much data at all. Great product.

A well designed, well constructed External Hard Drive. A nice feature is the activity light that illuminates Blue if the speed is USB 3.0 and Red if the speed is USB 2.0. More importantly, the notches around the drive for storing the cable is extremely useful. I highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a well-made HDD.

So far, great! I bought two of these for a simple server backup that I rotate out. I chose these due to the fact that I will be bringing them back and forth and leaving in a backpack sometimes in order to provide an offline and offsite backup for my companies server data. This is a secondary backup, so simple USB drives is all I wanted to deal with. I very much like the promise of durability and the package does seem very good for that, as all 4 corners are rubberized nicely. I also like that the USB 3.0 cable is USB A on each end, rather than MicroUSB, which I have found to be less durable for the always plugging in and unplugging uses. I think that full-size in this case makes more sense. The other, and probably most important, reason that I chose this device is the 3 year warranty. That beats the other guy's 2 year warranty that just bit me.

This is a great portable drive. I purchased the 2 TB. Case is very solid, with rubber bumpers at every corner. The bumpers also double for cable management, which is very clever. The drive runs cool and is completely silent. Mine came formatted in FAT32 (strange, considering the capacity), so I reformatted in NTFS. Some of the files that were preloaded on the drive wouldn't copy before the reformat, so be warned. I didn't use any of that anyway, so I don't care. I like this so much I'll probably buy a few more to replace older drives that I keep in my safe deposit box for monthly offsite system backups. No external storage case is really needed, since these are so durable with integrated cable management. I have used this using UBS 2.0 and 3.0, all works great. Recommended.

pros: really fast drive, I have usb 2 on my pc and this drive can push up to it's limits 30mb read 25mb write, impressive... it is 1TB drive and usable space is 931GBcons: whole body is plastic except this orange bubbles(which is nice rubber), I think could be better solution about plastic... it comes with about 25cm usb cable, drive is hanging on my PC when connecting in back side... it is formated by default with FAT32 file system and it has 4GB max file size limit (I formated to NTFS and works as good as on FAT32)overall: all u need when buying external drive is speed and capacity, that this drive delivers 100%....other: Cable on both sides has full sized USB connectors, unusual. and it do not comes with any software (cloud protection or something like that, nothing) I do not write this in cons because I do not use included software anyways ;) -- also on thing, I had WD 2TB ultra but died after about 3 month, will see how far it goes...

Love this little drive. I use it for taking files with me and between computers in my house. I like the plug storage, but it doesn't really stay put. I use an elastic band around it to make sure it doesn't fall off in my bag.The unit is very attractive and seems rugged, time will tell. It is thicker than my other external drives at 3/4".

In my humble opinion, this has got to be the best external USB drive I've ever had. I used to be biased and only bought WD drives, but even a drop from six inches can render those inoperative. These have had water spilled on them, been hit, been dropped from those six inches, and I still have access to all my data! Yep. A definite recommend on these. I have 2 of them now. Plan on buying a third. This is what happens when your PC has several terabytes of HDD storage.

»I've been using this drive at work and home and am very happy with its performance and design. I have the 1TB model which when formatted in Windows using NTFS ended up being 932GBs.»The outer casing consists of hard plastic and the green silicone material you can see in the photos. The green silicone is actually what is surrounding the hard drive inside, protecting it from drops and is how the 'suspension system' works. The green silicone also has a slot that goes all the way around which is used to hold onto the included USB 3.0 cable using 2 clips. The 2 plastic pieces simply screw into each other on each side using 4 screws. The USB port has a flap in the silicone to keep it closed and free of dust when not in use. There are also 2 openings on the bottom plastic part where 2 green strips come through and provide grip on whatever surface you put it on, preventing slips. Simple and effective design for protection, grip and convenience.»There is no external powered needed for this, power it taken from the USB port on whatever device you are using it with»Copying to and from the drive was speedy and I the speeds I received when running a speed test were about what I expected for a traditional hard drive over USB 3.0. I attached a photo of my results which were 120.0MB read and 115.8MB write for sequential writes. I'm not sure if Silicon Power wanted me to do this, but I did it anyways, I unscrewed the 4 screws to see what drive was inside. I know Silicon Power does not manufacture hard drives like Western Digital and Seagate do. I was hoping to find a brand name from one of the very few large drive manufacturers and I am happy to report I did. Inside is a 1TB standard Seagate laptop drive. Not some cheap white label drive, a quality brand drive. Good choice.»I have not tested the ability to survive a drop because I am actually using this on a daily basis so I am being slightly cautious. I am however throwing it into a backpack filled with things and plopping it down on a desk multiple times a day, you don't want to treat any standard hard drive with moving parts too terribly, but so far so good, no problems with performance or any strange issues.»Overall this has been a great drive for me and I recommend it to anyone looking for a more durable external drive to take on the go, if anything changes I will update this review in the future.*I received this product at a discount in exchange for an honest review, I hope this review was helpful.

Can confirm this is all of the things it boasts about... I got this for my friend who has two wild children who have demolished her last 3 external hard drives, so I figured this would be perfect.... But I wanted to test it first... I Put about 10gb worth of assorted files on this little thing, and it transferred more quickly than I anticipated. Then I proceeded to drop it down 3 flights of stairs (slinky style) Still worked fine, only a couple of scuffs, transferred a couple more gigs of stuff, still fast. Then I went to the bathroom and let this thing it in the bathtub submersed for 20 mins(I know it only says water resistant but I figured "why not?") dried it off and plugged it in, and success! I couldn't have been more surprised or impressed.

this has worked great so far! If you use a computer you need an external hard drive, period. Computers can crash and you can loss everything, that is what also most happened to me thankfully I was able to recover my material. I am in graduate school so I have a lot of documents and papers I have to keep track and without this I would be lost. I can upload all my documents to this little guy and take this to the school library, hook up to a PC there and work away - no need to lug my laptop around.

I work as a Karaoke DJ and tend to keep all of my music on an external hard drive. The problem with that is people spill drinks and get clumsy around equipment when they're drunk. So, I decided to do some research and look for an external HDD that would be able to support the large volume of music and at the same time present me with the comfort and confidence in knowing I have an external HDD that will withstand "torture".I ordered my A80 1TB HDD on February 13th and it arrived February 16th. So, right off the back their was a prompt and quick delivery of the product. When I opened the package I was very pleased to see the sleek, clean, ergonomic design but at the same time I could tell that this unit holds a solid quality feel. It comes with 2 USB 3.0 Super speed cables. 1 of which rests beautifully inside the side of the HDD case. Not only does the Silicon-Power A80 use the Asmedia AS1051 processor they are also one of the first USB 3.0 chipset certified manufacturers. Silicon-Power promises that this unit meets the water resistant standard and the U.S. military drop-test standards. I will run both the drop test and water test on video for this review.(COMING SOON)Before I run the drop and water tests I wanted to run a Benchmarking test. So, I used HD Tach. Now remember, anyone running any benchmark tests must understand that the mileage depends on hardware configuration. Basically, what type of computer hardware and software setup you're running.

UPDATE - more than three years of use on the first of the two I have. Both have been used as file backup drives and normally protected in semi-hard shell cases. Both are still working fine. Like all the cool kids I've gone to multiple redundancy for important file backups.Original:Have used mine (I have two) on travel for more than two years and they have done well for multiple redundancy backup. When the prices for equivalent capacity SSD devices come down, I'll probably move that way. But for the time being these have been reliable and decently quick even with USB 2.0 interfaces.

This hard drive is very rugged it appears it is nice that it holds the cord. I returned mine because the transfer rate was slow and I couldn't figure out a solution. I decided not to take it apart and check the hard drive in another enclosure and just return it. I gave it four stars because I felt it is a good product just not sure what the issue was with mine.

Very nice external hard drive. Very slim, lightweight and portable. I first opened it, I thought it seemed a little cheap feeling but after having it for a little while, it is a pretty durable hard drive. The copying speed seems slightly under par and thats why I only gave it 4 stars. It shipped on time and came when expected. All in all I would recommend it. Couldn't expect more for the price, just wish I would've got the 2 TB.

I've just had this device for a few days, and it's working like a champ so far. I like the exterior design, and the (reputed) robustness of its shock proofing.The only bone I've got to pick with this drive is its interface -- it uses a USB 3.0 A-to-A cable, which is pretty unusual. So it's good that the case includes cable management clips, because if you lose the cable when you're on a trip somewhere, you may have trouble finding a replacement. Of course, they're easily / cheaply purchased on Amazon and other online sites, but I'd rather not have to carry yet another spare cable on my trips to the boonies.

I've had this a while now and it's solid. How perfect for someone like me who needs to capture every moment of their kids' lives. That's a lot of megabytes and gigabytes and now yes, terrabytes! Thank goodness. Don't go for the Transcend. I've bought 3 and all 3 have let me down. I have 3 of these SP drives and have had them for more than a year. So far they are doing a great job! Go this route for cost effective memory that's built with quality

This little backup drive holds a lot of data. It is easy to use - just plug it in and go to it. If one wants to reformat for an Apple Mac, that's easy too. Either way works on a Mac, but if one reformats it for a Mac, then only Macs will be able to read the data.I like that the cord can be attached to the device, but I'd prefer it if it was permanently attached and could be tucked out of harm's way like the cord on my portable Hitachi simple Tough.This SP 1TB Rugged Armor A30 Shockproof drive just survived a trip in my airline carry-on bag (both on the floor of the aircraft cabin and in the belly of a puddle jumper aircraft with other luggage) with all of my backup data intact.

no software installation required. HUGE plus. Immediate access into the drive. VERY NICE. HOWEVER, little USB cable holders that snap onto the sides of the drive are quite useless as they keep falling off and easy to lose.

Satisfied and it worked the exact way it described in the details. I love how light it feels

Great, it is drop resistant. There is a limit for the size of the file transferred at once, but there are ways around that. I would definitely buy again, but not in the future because I don't enjoy spending money. This was the exception.ProsHas a very nice case around the hardwarefast downloadsmaller than I thoughtVery pleasant experiencePlug and literally playConsWish it could transfer really big files (it may can, still playing around with it)an internal storage for the usb cable

So far I like it. I'm not going to give it a five star rating yet because I haven't tested it long enough to see its length of life or "rugged" qualities, but it looks tough and runs quietly, smoothly, and runs without any necessary setup [unless you're using a mac and want to use it as both a time machine backup (os extended journaled) and also a drive to store files for transfer between macs and pcs (I believe the format for that is FAP)]. I'm hopeful that it will survive the long run.I also ordered the Drive Logic DL-64 Portable EVA Hard Drive Carrying Case Pouch (Red) and it fits in there; I just had to remove the side usb to usb dongle cable from its plastic clamps and the clamps from the hard drive as well (which is super easy to do). Both of these fit in the pouch's pocket. Having this hard carrying case will make me feel more at ease when bringing it to rougher environments.

Well it looks cool and i like how the usb cable is included and slips to the side of the case. Its small and that's nice too. Really can't say to much about it as have not used it much, but in order to enter their contest to win an ipad air you have to write a review so here it is. LOL - Anyhow did copy 284 gigs of data from an old drive and it took about 3.5 to 4 hours to copy all that - might be because the computer copying it was an older computer. It has a 3 year warranty but am hoping it lasts alot longer than that. Really have nothing bad to say about it so far.

I looked for a drive to replace my old Transcend (640GB StoreJet M3) after the USB connector failed. A work colleague purchased the SP A60 drive and after looking it over I decided it would be a better replacement for the Transcend based on the device using an actual USB port rather than the flat USB3 connector. In fact that alone was the reason why I would not choose the Transcend again.Other than that, the SP 1TB A60 drive is very nice, the top of the cover can be a little slippery but on the desk it sits firm with the anti-slip pads underneath. I do a lot of international travelling and the drives take a bit of a beating as I go around the world.I'll give it 5 stars in 3 years time :)

Too early to tell long term operation. Only in use for two months and it is working fine. Time will tell.

As far as being a storage backup, seems to work find. Haven't really dropped it so I'll assume it works fine for that. My problem is that the cord isn't even remotely secure enough to stay attach to the drive. I even kept it in a makeshift case that was used for Bluetooth speakers so it wasn't getting snagged on anything, but it still kept popping off

I have two laptops. One recognized it instantly, however my other laptop will not acknowledge when I plug it in. No matter which USP port I use it will not come on, and every other Hard drive that I plug in is recognized instantly. I don't know if it is the computer or the hard drive.

mixed review...been a year since ive had it almost....worked splendidly but has stopped working on my computers for some reason but my TV can still read media of of it....now i cant extract the data from it to reformat and check....stuck in a bind...not sure if it was my mishandling or a fault in the product...if someone knows a way out please let me know

Great, easy to use, comes with its own cord that is USB, and it stows right on the unit. What more could I ask for? It's 2TB, so plenty of space. if they come out with a 1TB SSD version with USB 3.0, I am buying it!

The shock proof orange knubs are cool, but the two sides have no rubber grip, making it easy for this thing to slide around on a desk. Other "rugged" hard drives are covered with rubber, keeping it in place when sitting on a desk or on top of a tower computer.

So I finally tested it out. Overall it does the job but way slower than I would like. It copies and pastes fairly slow compared to my other external HDD's. I also don't think it had its technical specs were showcased other than how it can protect your data.

It works--but the cord does not stay attached. I have already lost one of the little clips that doesn't stay. The reason I purchased this was because of the cord management.

It worked quickly and easily to save pictures and documents from my MacBook Pro, but I cannot use with my Surface Pro 3. I have tried trouble shootingwithout success. I am very disappointed as I made the purchase to save my files from my Mac before I could no longer access the files so I wouldn't lose them and could view or use with my Surface Pro. Yes, the documents are Microsoft docs as I had the Microsoft Office pack installed on the Mac. The Surface makes noise saying it knows something has been plugged in, but I cannot open the hard drive, view contents, or save to it on the Surface.

Received this 2 days ago and one of the clip that holds the cord has already disappeared. Not very happy as I don't think they should pop out so easily. Glad I didn't lose the cord as well- thankfully I haven't left my home with the hard drive. Definitely needs improvement on the cord fasteners.

The drive is great but the way the cable attaches to the outside of the drive is cheap.

I'm using the time machine apple and says it will take five hours to support 128 GB, I think it's very slow.

It lags when watching a show from it. Runs on power from the laptop which may be the reason. Cable could be a bit longer also. It works though and was received on time.

Not very amused with these. Mine fell, running, about 2ft onto carpet and attached to the cord that I caught and slowed it's fall, but still died. They replaced it under warranty but I lost some work and was without my school drive for a couple weeks. All drives are shockproof when they're not running, I bought these because I thought they'd be safe from accidents while running, apparently not.

Please be careful...problems galore. I copied almost all the data I ever had to this drive thinking it was good since this is "rugged" as they say and can withstand hand grenade attacks. BUT, after about a month, this drive is now almost useless. If I plug it into windows or linux it freezes the whole computer for about 5 minutes. It is becoming just about unusable. I will, for sure, be buying another drive, not the same. I am not bothering to call support since I see they clearly dont care. Its sad to see support just go to hell for just about everything. My SP Armor is plugged in right as I type and its taking me a few minutes just to type this out. Horrible.

I've had this for little over a year, I had my portfolio, videos, priceless photos, pretty much my whole life on this harddrive. It recently failed. It won't read. I can't move anything off it anymore. It just blinks red then will keep trying to reconnect. I've replaced my cable in hopes it would fix it to no avail. I'm really disappointed in this product. "Rugged" heh... Right.

I loved this device until it was all of a sudden not accessible on any device I tried. I would try to return but all my personal data is in it and I can't get in there to format. Mind you the hardware is detectable on my computers but when when I try to go in it tells me access is denied. I tried:Right clicking, going to security tab and all the permissions are in place. I'm hoping someone from the manufacturer can get back to me with a solution as I would like to have my product back and give them 5 stars.Running Windows 10 (It worked after installing W10 for several weeks then kaput)Also tried it on Windows 7 machine.

Doesn't seem to me that durable. Over the surface, it looks like a well-built reliable product. I ordered 10 of these in June for my technicians and now three months later, suddenly they are starting to die one by one. So far 3 drives have failed in the past two weeks one after the other. The 2.5 in. drive inside the enclosure just stops spinning and won't work anymore even though the LED light comes on. Changed cables, tried different computers, different USB ports, etc. I understand that some times you might get a bad apple, but 3 out of 10 so far died and who knows how many more in the next few months? That's a 30% failure rate which is unacceptable. Looks like the company better issue a recall on these. They use Samsung Momentus drives internally and it seems like Silicon Power didn't do their due diligence to find out how bad these are. I am giving it two stars instead of one because of the nice rugged construction and the USB port is not the flimsy micro USB crap.UPDATE 11/17/14: Just had another drive fail. This is the 4th drive to die. I found out it is the Samsung Momentus drive that just dies without warning and it doesn't spin up. The previous three drives that died were replaced by the company under warranty. Let's see how long they last. I am totally blaming this on the terrible Samsung Momentous drive.

Worked great for the first two months. Put then it had trouble staying connected.

Was not a USB 3.o transfer speed. Didnt work when I plugged it in.

My problem is that it keeps getting ejected from my macbook pro everytime I so much as touch the area close to the USB port. It is very frustrating and I worry that at some point after several "disk not ejected properly" messages, the hard drive will just fail.:(It's beautiful, though.

I wouldn't trust it with important data. Some of my files have become corrupt or won't open from the drive. I have all my files backed up on another drive from a different company and have no problem retrieving the files from that drive. Very disappointed because I liked that it was shockproof and my other drives are not. It's just not reliable for my files.

This could simply be my own HDD, but unfortunately mine continually asks me to reformat it upon plugging it in to my PC. Very disappointed as it will not be of any use to me now if it simply wants to erase everything every time it is plugged in.

This has been great so far. It's small, it's lightweight. I have had no issues with corruption. The only little tiny thing I would say is that the clips on the sides that hold the USB cord can fall off. They can be easily reattached, but they are not permanently fixed. I just use a hairband to keep the cord around the hard drive when I'm not using it.**UPDATE**The hard drive tried to die!! It wouldn't turn on properly and I was nearly unable to retrieve anything off of it. I have no idea what happened. It is dry, it hasn't been dropped. Almost lost a ton of work data. I was finally able to get it all, but only in a certain position and sitting perfectly still and then it wasn't a guarantee.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY! I bought this in March, and 5 months later (of barely using it except to copy all my back up files onto it once) it's stopped working. Slow and won't let me see my files. Had to take it to my IT guy at work and he was able to salvage my files for me. Explained it had a spinning disk inside which is older technology. Spend more money and go for one without the spinning disk. This product is useless.

Had it for 3 months and stopped working. Figured the cord was defective but after buying a new cord I realized it was the hard drive. DO NOT BUY!!!! You will waste your money!!! I lost movies, pictures, music and home videos. The customer service for this product in nonexistent.

This item is defective. Its not a product. It will not load, stalls and even crashes. And this is only when putting about 80 photos on it. I have had my IT guy look at it and it is simply a bad product. This is a shame as it looks good. I am trying to save all my family photos so I really need something that is reliable and works. After spending time putting this together, trying to solve this I have gone past the return date and have to buy another product for my project.

this product was good for a couple of months and the suddenly stopped working. The light is on, but the drive is not recognized by a computer. I thought the cord might be an issue, I used a different cord and still was no luck. The is no way to reach anybody in customer service either. Don't buy it, it's a waste of money.

I bought two of these 2 months ago to use them as back up drives. These are very compact and doesn't need external power. However, for no apparent reason one of them stopped working, all the data is lost. I am unable return or get a replacement because of Amazon's return policy. I would not recommend this.

HD lasted for three or four weeks then the problems started. The HD began having problems randomly recognizing the 3.0 USB on my PC. I thought it might be the drivers. I uninstalled and reinstalled to no avail. I then tested the HD on my laptop 3.0 and the same thing occurred. I attempted to contact SP twice by email and once by phone (phone contact was such a joke). I'm going to attempt a final time before contacting Amazon to request a refund. This drive has given me so much grief. I formatted twice, backed up content and then transferred twice. Both times this drive failed to either stay connected or would randomly disconnect. I have a Western Digital 1 TB that is nearly 2 years old and is used specifically for video and music with continual use as a direct play drive and it works flawlessly. I ultimately will be going back to a WD Passport for a secondary drive.

When I first formatted it for Mac using Disk Utilities and tried it from my laptop it was ok. When I connected it to my iMac and tried to put real work on it for backup, not only did it fail, but it also caused my Mac to reboot spontaneously. Twice. I returned it and will not buy another.

After two weeks, devices were not picking up hard drive. Please use caution when picking this device. Returned it, which was an easy process thankfully.

Error messages after 1 month of use. I tried to reformat it, but still had the issues.

Awful product, first it crashes on me and I lost 100 GB worth of data, then cable breaks and now it turns out, the hard drive just plain, stopped working, losing another 100 GB, thanks a lot

I am very unhappy with this product. I purchased it to store my digital photos. I opened the unit on my computer yesterday to transfer files and all the files that I had saved on here somehow have disappeared. Thankfully I have 2_external back ups but if I hadn't I would have lost all my photos since 2004. I have a similar external drive from this manufacturer that has work get but my faith in this company's products is shaken. I would love to talk to someone regarding this product from the company or Amazon.

Horrible device - stopped working without reason 4 months after purchase... Did not drop it... no damage whatsoever - just stopped working. Unable to reach their customer support... Lost all my documents - NEVER PURCHASE FROM THEM AGAIN!!!