ADATA offers a durable 2.5” hard drive for robust usage. It is a portable shock and waterproof drive which is capable of handling shocks and liquid drop. External storage drive are need of today. We always look for a better optio nto carry or backup your data on a seperate place which offers mobility and mental peace. The data life and recovery depends on the drive you buy. Almost all external hard drive comes with moving parts. And compared to them SSD’s are still too costly and low on space. This moving parts are risky and can be damage very easily due to water or shock. So you need to keep outmost care of drive you are using. Also drive dopped accidently from your computer desk can result in head crash instantly making the drive completely unreadable. Keeping that in mind, we are going to discuss about a drive which comes under durable series of ADATA. The manufacturer has already proven its products druablity with some test standards. DashDrive Durable HD710 is one of the those series.
The drive comes in three different storage space. They are 500GB, 750GB and 1TB. And there are three color choices – Yellow, Blue and Black. There are number of different product line offered by ADATA for all classes. DashDrive Durable is one of them which offers 2 important things. First high speed through USB 3.0 interface and second a shockeproof design that increases your drive and data life. It is common that sometime we are a bit careless. Regular hard drive is designed with simple material which makes it more handy. The manufacturer mostly target the look. Not the durability. Hard drive gets very easily damaged due to shock. Due to moving parts inside it, there are chances that with minor fall the drive head crashes to the platter. Or due to water spill, the internal electronic components are damaged which no longer respond. And at that time to recover your precious data you are willing spend a huge amount to get it back.
You have to visit any reputed data recovery firm and pay them quiet a nice amount to get all stuff back. So it would be wise if you spent before and avoid all those consequences. Marked as HD710 DashDrive Durable, you get a shockproof and waterproof drive. Made with military grade standards, the drive lands perfect on our water test. It is not right to say that this drive is completely safe from fall or water. You cannot go underwater with the drive. The bodyis coated with proper shockproof material. When the drive falls the body absorbs maximum shock and blocks it reaching to the internal parts. You can see that the rubber body is bit bouncy. There are very less drive which has shockproof ability. And above that getting a USB 3.0 high speed data transfer interface gives more value to HD710. If you travel, or if there are naughty kids at your home, then this drive could be your data saviour. Not so complex to manage, and impressive design makes the external storage a top product on the list. Lets check out in detail about the design, features and performance.
Design :
Looking ADATA HD710 there is only one word that comes in mind – RUGGED. This term stands for a durable and strong product. Rugged means a product that can tolerate exterme conditions. Waterproof and Shockproof are some of them. HD710 is not really a complicated design. There is a simple led indicator which most of ADATA products has to show that the drive is used. There is no additional button over it. The connector below is covered with a rubber type coating. Try to close that before putting it in water. The liquid can damage the below connectors. As it is the only open hole on entier device. HD710 comes under the rugged list after passing two test. The first is Military MIL-STD-810G 516.6 drop test and IEC 529 IPX7 water test. I had provided a short description of this test below to give you more idea about the quality of HD710. But before that we will go in more detail about the design and features. As I said before that it comes with USB 3.0 interface. This interface let you have maximum 5GB per second data transfer rate. That means with relative standards you can quickly copy large files and move head. Just have a look on the image below that reflects a bit details on HD710 outer surface.
The image above offers a clear glimpse how HD710 looks like You can assume the size and the look also. The body has some special rubber type material used. The casing looks very strong. Above the body ADATA added a impressive cable management feature. ADATA followed the path of HV610, giving more additional benefit to HD710. Loosing cable is quiet easy for external storage and ample of people just never unplug the cable from drive. This puts a bit pressure on the below connector making loose from one side. The image below is of cable attached with the drive. The upper part has a nice slot where you can tightly put the cable and it stays with the drive. No hassle of keeping or forgetting the cable. The color scheme is another impressive factor which makes HD710 more attractive. It reflect some kind of heavy duty racing car. HD710 is larger is width and it is going to occupy a bit space in your bag. It is uncomfortable to carry it in pocket. But that is not a negative aspect. The width increases due to shockproof coating over its body. A combination of Yellow&Black, Blue and Black and only Black adds more to variety.
It looks there is some kind of double coating on HD710. At the top side there is a rubber type material which is rough and offers a very good grip. It handles all the shock over surface. The second is internal plastic box or the enclosure which is molded perfectly over the real hard drive making it caught inside sealed container. This blocks the water from entering the internal circuit. There is no noise at all, but you can clearly feel the vibration of spindle moving fast inside. There might be a 2.5 inch high rpm drive inside. But ADATA not revealed what drive they are using inside it.
Durabiligy and Features :
It is better if we talk about the durability separately. As a shockeproof and waterproof hard drive, we are not satisfied util we test it. We had tested the drive by keeping it under water for few minutes. It is recommended that if accidently the drive is wet or if you are really testing it, connect thedrive only after drying it out completely. Because the connector part is the only open hole on the entire drive and yet there is no complains about the damage. A product is only termed as rugged if it goes through certain exterme test. HD710 has passed IEC 529 IPX7 Test & Military MIL-STD-810G 516.6drop test. This is a popular water protection test which consist of 8 Levels. HD710 was able to read to Level 7. Level 7 indicate that HD710 can stand in water for 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter. So you can figure out that if you are thinking to test this product, do not put it underwater for more than 30 minutes. The second test is for shock. Drop test consist of a process where a device is thrown from particular height. MIL-STD-810G is a exterme miliatry test which is performed on various equipement used by soldier. To check that those devices or equipement can stand under exterme enviromental condition or not. For a hard drive shock or falling on ground is great risk.
Fortunately HD710 is capable of surviving from 122cm which is approximately a height of 4 foot. So that is quiet better I think. And for the watertest as per test performed by ADATA, the drive still worked after keeping it underwater for 30 minutes. In our test we had not followed that much time, but we are really satisfied the drive design. It makes it robust and gives a bit of peace to carry the drive roughly wherever you go. You can keep back of your cherishable memories and rely on HD710. You can use HDDtoGo with the drive for quick backup and multiple usage. HDDtoGo is deafult software offered on ADATA’s external storage hard drive. There is a small led light at the bottom, which the only indicator to view that the drive is in usage or not.
Performance :
Now the most important part. The performance. Caculation speed of data transfer. Rightnow we are only testing it on USB 2.0 interface. As this one the more commonly available. Still USB 3.0 ports are taking space very slowly. But there is quiet a long time till USB 3.0 becomes completely common among us. After testing the drive on Windows XP type system that has a regular front usb 2.0 connection we found that it offers a contant 30MB per second data transfer speed. This is not bad at all. I had seen on usb and number of different external storage is limited to 10mbps and even below. The rate fluctutes which is based on the power usage of Drive. Check the test report below.
Test 1 : USB 2.0 on Windows 7
Test 2 : USB 3.0 on Windows 7
For USB 3.0 you can expect above 100MB per second in worst conditions. The intergrated USB 3.0 chip controller on H710, gives the drive a stable data transfer speed. Due to upgraded standard it becomes more reliable. And as we had already seen the design and feature, the drive is a value for money product.
Conclusion :
The best part of DashDrive Durable is its design and material which makes it a powerful storage solution. It is wise to go for a USB 3.0 interface, because in future you would have to upgrade for getting more speed. The drive offers you different storage sizes, and it is easily available. Durability offers a mental peace of using the drive anywhere you are. You can carry it in rain, or simply while travelling. It is a stronger device made for exterme users. With not major settings, it is simple to handle and has a cable holder. This time this done more smartly which holds the cable very tightly. So there are very less chances of loosing it. ADATA HD710 is a durable and performance product.
