Info Berita Rekan

While commonly overlooked, regular backups is one of the most sensible tasks one should perform when it comes to personal computing. Without the help of a secondary storage device or some sort of remote backup strategy, chances of recovering data should your computer’s hard drive completely die overnight would be bleak at best.But users don’t just have to worry about hardware failures. There are a range of other unforeseeable problems that could arise when least expected such as theft or even fire.

Depending on what your profession or hobby is you may only need to backup a small amount of data, or quite the opposite, and have huge storage requirements. The first group can easily get away with using flash memory drives these days. However, if you are looking at storing hundreds of gigabytes of data then an alternate solution will be required.

One of the most typical and convenient options is having an external hard drive. Not only are these affordable and easy to use, but once data has been backed up, you can take it with you or store it at a safe location. You could go with a 3.5″ form factor drive for the lowest possible price, though when portability is preferred, 2.5″ drives are the way to go.

These are considerably smaller, lighter and do not require an external power source — making them more practical. They are not much more expensive than 3.5″ drives, either. For instance, you can buy a 2.5″ portable hard drive with a 500GB of storage capacity for as little as $90, whereas the cheapest we have come across for a similar capacity 3.5″ model is $70.

Reliability and durability should also be taken into account. Portable hard drives are just an accidental drop away from irrecoverable loss, so spending a bit more to ensure data safety is a no-brainer for someone as ham-fisted as myself. Depending on the use you intend to give this drive you might want to consider that as well.

We have seen flash-based thumb drives from the likes of OCZ and Corsair survive large drops, being submerged or even frozen if the occasion presents itself. However, creating a portable hard drive this robust presents a few more challenges, as it will not only be heavier but also more fragile because of its internal moving parts.

A-DATA has taken it upon themselves to deliver such a product with their new SH93 line, bringing the industry’s first waterproof and shock resistant portable hard drive. The SH93 was designed for road warriors who need to take their storage with them on the harshest of environments. Let’s take a closer look…

The A-DATA SH93 is only slightly more expensive than your typical portable 2.5″ drive, priced at around $110 for the 500GB version. Other than that, there’s not much typical about this drive. It is designed to be rugged and durable, with A-DATA aiming at students, people constantly on the move and “sports enthusiasts.”Besides the model we tested today the SH93 also comes in 320GB and 640GB capacities, priced at around $80 and $150 respectively, and your choice between bright yellow and red colors.

The SH93 incorporates a rubber-plastic mix for its housing which acts as a cushion protection against bumps and falls. It fully meets the “MIL-STD-810F 516.5 procedure IV” military standard for transit drop tests, allowing the drive to endure 1.2 m (4 ft) falls onto a hard surface. If you were to drop the SH93 while carrying it or knock it from a desk, this is about how far the unit would fall, so it’s a fair test to certify the drive with.

Its casing also acts as a water proof skin protecting the 2.5″ hard drive inside from water damage. A-DATA claims that the SH93 is completely waterproof, according to IEC 529 IPX7 standards, in up to one meter deep for up to 30 minutes, which should give you more than enough time to fish it out of a pond. It is worth mentioning that the drive itself does not float so don’t go dropping it in the deep end.

We wouldn’t just take A-DATA’s claims without first playing rough with the drive for a few days. Apart from knocking it off the desk around a dozen times, I wanted to see how the SH93 handled rough concrete and gravel. Surprisingly, the rubber took this punishment very well without so much as a scratch. Of course, throwing the SH93 in dusty gravel a few times did make it quite dirty, though its waterproof feature came in handy here.

To clean the drive we simply ran it under the tap and had it looking like new again. Given that the SH93 is waterproof, we then submerged it into the kitchen sink for half an hour, plugged it back in and found our data was still intact as advertised. Upon closer inspection we found no evidence of any leaks when dismantling the SH93. So long as the USB port lid is closed, you’ll get away with exposing this portable drive to water.

Other than the rubbery outer shell there is another unusual design aspect of the SH93 that A-DATA hopes will help make this product a little more desirable. Instead of requiring users to separately carry around a USB cable, the SH93 includes a 30cm long USB cable that wraps around the body of the drive.

This is a great idea, although reattaching the cable to the outside of the housing after every use was quite annoying. The cable is not easily tucked away and the whole process is a little clumsy and awkward. That said, we see no obvious solution to the problem so users will just have to be patient when packing up their SH93.

Rounding out the exterior features is a bright blue LED that signals activity when the drive is in use. As for its internals, the 500GB SH93 model we are testing today uses a 2.5″ Fujitsu MJA2500BH hard disk drive sporting 8MB of cache and spinning at 5400RPM.