If you’re anything like me keeping your data safe and secure is of the utmost importance. I’m talking about keeping it safe from hackers though. Sure that’s important but what I’m talking about it keeping it safe from life. With three kids at home I’ve got thousands and thousands of memories, in the form of digital pictures, stored on various hard drives. From time to time I take one of the portable hard drives with me, to a family members house, or on the road. Life has a tendency to throw bumps and bruises our way from time to time and making sure nothing happens to my digital media when it’s away from home is paramount.
The Silicon-Power Armor A80 is a portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive ready to take on life’s unexpected surprises. The simple plug and play drives comes in three different storage capacities, 320G, 500G or 640G. And perhaps most importantly this little drive is not only waterproof but shock and dust proof too.
The Armor A80 comes in a metallic blue finish. Inside the packaging you’ll find a UBS cable, soft CD and user manual. This drive works with both Windows & Linux (USB 3.0 and 2.0) and Mac OS X (USB 2.0).
The drive has only one port, a USB in, and it features a rubberized cover which serves to keep dust, debris and other foreign elements out when not in use.
On the right side of the Armor A80 a recessed channel houses a short, portable USB cable. This ensures you’ll always have a transfer cable with you. You can choose to leave the other, longer cable at home and use the shorter one when you’ve taken the drive out and about.
The Armor A80 makes a lot of claims about what it can withstand. According to Silicon-Power the drive meets military drop-test standard (MIL-STD-810F 516.5 Procedure IV.)
It can also survive being fully submerged in up to 3 feet of water for 30 minutes.
And finally the A80 features an advanced two-stage anti-shock, anti-pressure and anti-dust protection.
Well if you know me you know I couldn’t sit back and let those claims go untested. So I decided to see if the A80 really could survive some real life torture test. How did it fair? Watch the video below to find out.
The Armor A80 is the perfect hard drive for those people who take their data on the road often. If you’re one of those people you know life sometimes throws us unexpected surprises. Like getting caught in a rain store, or dropping our gear. If you want to insure your data survives whatever life throws at you the Armor A80 is the type of external hard drive you want. This thing is strong. It can be soaked by water, have coffee spilled all over it, get dropped, doused by dust and other debris and yet still hold you data inside safe and sound. You might expect to have to pay a small fortune for the sort of protection the Armor A80 offers, but that’s not the case at all. At under $150 you can’t afford not to have this sort of protection for life’s precious memories.
The Silicon-Power Armor A80 is available from various online retailers such as B&H and Amazon.
MSRP: $149.95 (as reviewed)
What I Liked: Able to survive life’s unexpected curveballs while keeping your data safe
What Needs Improvement: Nothing