Silicon Power Armor A66 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Portable Hard Drive

Model: Silicon Power Armor A66 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Portable Hard Drive
Manufacturer: Silicon Power
Provided By: Silicon Power

Silicon Power is a relatively new name in the storage industry. Founded in 2003 by a group of professionals specializing in international business, global marketing and technical engineering, the company has already established itself as one of Taiwan's top manufacturers. With an eye for attractive and versatile design, Silicon Power has built its brand around the concept that its customers deserve products that represent who they are in life and mirror their personality. The end result is a variety of uniquely designed memory modules and storage products including USB flash drives, memory cards and solid-state drives (SSD).

In addition to their flash based storage solutions, Silicon Power offers a number of portable hard drives. One of the latest additions to their product lineup is the Armor A66. Available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities, this rugged, all-terrain USB 3.2 Gen 1 hard drive meets the U.S. military's drop-test standards. Along with a protective rubber bumper that provides 360˚ protection, the Armor A66 is equipped with an advanced suspension system that reduces impact force and increases shock-absorption. In addition, the drive offers IPX4 water-resistance that protects it against splashing from any direction. To top it all off, the Armor A66 works with Silicon Power's SP Widget backup and security software and is covered by a 3-year warranty. 

With specs and features like this, it's hard not to be impressed by the Armor A66. However, as you all know by now, we're not ones to take things at face value. In this review, we'll take a closer look at Silicon Power's portable hard drive and then put it through its paces to see how well it performs. Is the Armor A66 the best choice for the person on the go? Keep reading as we find out.

Packaging and Contents:

The Armor A66 comes packaged in an eye catching white, orange and purple box. The front advertises key features like the drive's 2TB capacity, USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, military-grade shockproof protection and water resistance. The back of the box provides a bit more information, including the Armor A66's specifications, package contents and key features. Inside the box you'll find the drive as well as a USB 3.2 cable.

Physical Features:

Like Silicon Power's other Armor series hard drives, the Armor A66 is a bit on the large side. The 1TB and 2TB versions of the drive measure 139.2mm x 96.0mm x 16.2mm and weigh in at 209g. The 4TB and 5TB versions are slightly thicker (24mm) and tip the scales at 328g. The extra bulk is primarily due to the rubber bumper that surrounds the drive and protects it against drops and water. In addition, it can be used to store the USB cable when not in use.

The Armor A66's top and bottom panels are constructed out of lightweight, black plastic. Underneath the top panel, the drive also has a multicolor LED which lights up red or blue, depending on the USB connection type. This indicator also flashes to show when data is being transferred.

Along the back, you can see the Armor A66's SuperSpeed USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface. This full size connector not only transfers data but provides power for the drive. The rubber bumper also has a plug that, when placed over the USB connector, keeps water out of the drive.

The Armor A66's protective outer bumper also serves as an internal anti-collision suspension system that reduces impact force and increases shock-absorption. According to Silicon Power, the drive is military-grade shockproof and meets the MIL-STD 810G Method 516.6 Procedure IV drop test requirements.

Using CrystalDiskInfo, you can see that Silicon Power has used Seagate's ST2000LM007 hard drive. This slim 7mm drive features a SATA 6.0Gb/s interface, 128MB cache and a 5400 RPM rotation speed.

Performance:

The test system used in this review is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x CPU, MSI B550 GAMING PLUS motherboard, 16GB (8GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 memory, Crucial P5 1TB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I used the latest version of Windows 10 Pro.

To test the performance of Silicon Power's Armor A66 portable hard drive, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW and ATTO Disk Benchmark. To get a feel for the "real world" performance, I also copied and pasted 1GB of random files and directories as well as a single 4GB ISO file in Windows Explorer.

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.1:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 4K in size.

Silicon Power doesn't really say what kind of speeds the Armor A66 is capable of. Using CrystalDiskMark we can see that the drive is able to read at 121.8 MB/s and write at 122.6 MB/s when connected to a USB 3.0 port.

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Next, I used HD Tach to test the Armor A66's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.

When connected to the computer's USB 3.0 port, the Armor A66 had average read and write speeds of 109.3 MB/s and 108.7 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 243.0 MB/s.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4.01:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Armor A66's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 512B to 64 MB and the total length set to 256MB.

When tested with ATTO, the Armor A66's read speeds topped out at about 132 MB/s and its write speeds at 133 MB/s.

"Real World" Benchmark:

To test the "real world" performance of the Armor A66, I copied and pasted 1GB worth of randomly generated files and directories. All of the files are between 1KB and 95MB in size and no more than five directories deep. To see how well the drive handled large files, I also copied and pasted a 4GB ISO file.

The Armor A66 performed fairly well here, taking 11 seconds to write 1GB worth of test data and the same amount of time to read it back.

Final Thoughts:

The Armor A66 is an excellent choice for anyone looking for an affordable, all-terrain drive that’s rugged enough to handle whatever life throws at it. Available in a number of different colors and capacities, Silicon Power's new portable hard drive is good looking, well constructed and is equipped with an advanced suspension system designed to meet the U.S. military drop-test standards. It also features a rubber bumper that provides additional 360˚ protection against shocks, drops and water and serves as a place to store the included USB cable when not in use. Performance-wise, the Armor A66 performed as expected. Thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, the 2TB version of the drive was able to read at speeds as high as 140 MB/s and write at more than 135 MB/s.

The Armor A66  is available now in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities and can be purchased directly from Silicon Power or through online retailers like Amazon.com. Prices currently range from $47 up to $120 with the 2TB version reviewed here going for $60.