- USB 3.0 cable comes included and attaches neatly to the drive
- Powered via the USB 3.0 port which means no extra cables
- Small form factor means small footprint
- Silicone port seal flap is flimsy and could easily become opened or not closed properly
- Due to the ruggedness and design, you cannot remove the internal hard drive
ADATA has released their waterproof and shockproof durable external hard drive exclusively for the Mac. It’s called the HD710A and it comes in either 1TB or 2TB flavours. For those who work in a not-so-indoor environment and want to ensure that their data is safe from accidents, such as being dropped or going for a swim, the ADATA HD710A external hard drive is for you. With plug-and-play installation, you just plug it into an available USB 3.0 (or USB 2.0) port and you will have an additional external storage at your fingertips!
Features and Specifications
The primary feature of the ADATA HD710A external hard drive is its ruggedness. It is IP68 certified for water and dust resistance, meaning you can drop it into up to 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) of water for up to 60 minutes, it will survive in a dusty environment and it’ll even work after you’ve dropped it on the cement.
What’s in the Box?
The ADATA HD710A package does not come with a lot, which is nice as it keeps the size of the packaging down. You get the external drive itself and the USB 3.0 cable is wrapped around it. There is also the quick start guide underneath the drive, but other than that, that’s all you need. Because it’s designed for Mac, not only does it share a similar colour palette, you just plug it in and away you go!
The construction of the drive seems to be of the rugged sort. A small 2.5″ form-factor drive means a small footprint, which is great for not taking up much space. The rugged part of the drive, the darker gray portion, is made of silicone and seems to be adhered with some sort of strong adhesive. This is to allow for the drive to withstand those accidental drops to the ground; the silicone can act as a sort of buffer to dampen the vibration and shock.
The ADATA HD710A passes the MIL-STD-810G 516.6 military-grade shock-resistant test too, which means if you do accidentally drop it, you can rest assured your data will be safe.
The ADATA HD710A can also stay submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water for 60 minutes. This may sound great, but the silicone port seal needs to be fully closed if it is to withstand being dunked underwater for any period of time. If you, as an example, are working poolside and you accidentally bump the drive into the water, while it is still connected to your Mac, chances are the water will get into the drive via the USB connector (the silicone port seal is open) and bad things tend to happen when electronics get wet.
Working in a dusty environment? As long as the silicone port seal is fully closed, your data will be safe. I’m not entirely sure who would be making use of a Mac in a dusty environment, but if you do and your Mac does survive, then the data on the ADATA DH710A will survive too.
Test Setup and Configuration
For the test setup, I utilized my 2011 13-inch Macbook Air, though the downside is that it does not have native USB 3.0 ports. I made use of the Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD which will does have USB 3.0 ports and goes through the Thunderbolt bus, so I should be able to, theoretically, obtain USB 3.0 speeds.
Performance Tests
When it comes to performance, most people will want to know how it handles with data transfers to and from the device. Blackmagic is great for showing what types of speeds are obtainable with storage devices, be they mechanical or solid-state.
USB 3.0
Since my Macbook Air does not have native USB 3.0 ports, I had to run the test through Thunderbolt to the USB 3.0 ports that the Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD offers me. In the screenshot above, you can see that the ADATA HD710A can maintain 106.8 MB/s write and a slighter faster read at 110.3 MB/s. Of course, the internal drive also plays a part with the performance, but for an external solution, this isn’t that bad.
USB 2.0
Now because USB 3.0 products are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports, you can use this external drive even if you don’t have USB 3.0. You don’t get the speeds of USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt, but you can use it for backing files up that you do not need to rely on speeds for. When plugging the ADATA HD710A directly into the USB 2.0 ports of my Macbook Air, you can see from the screenshot above that it can sustain a 26.1 MB/s write speed with a 28.8 MB/s read speed.
Abusing the ADATA HD710A
The silicone port seal does not look very effective and you do need to make sure you wiggle it around to ensure that it is fully closed. So with the port closed, I took it on a little adventure.
To find out how rugged the ADATA HD710A really is, I took it down to the beach. In order to abuse it as much as I could, I threw it around in the low-tide (salt) water and then found a fresh water creek I could use to wash off all that salt water.
It took a few attempts to get the splash on frame, but it was completely submerged in the salt water and as you can see from the second photo, it is underwater and has fine sand particles all over it. It was then time for the fresh water bath.
I let the water pass over it for a good 10 minutes while I talked to my wife on the phone, but before I dunked it into its fresh water bath, I did check to make sure the silicone seal port was fully closed. It’s a good thing I did, because it opened up during the walk from the salt water to the fresh water. I could see this happening in the real world too. You probably wouldn’t check to see if the port was fully closed before placing it into a bag or pocket, and if it was bouncing around, it can easily be opened up by catching on something.
Final Thoughts
In all honesty, I don’t know where one might make use of the ruggedness of the ADATA HD710A external hard drive. Chances are that if it is not in use, it will most likely be in a bag which means that it won’t be exposed to dust or dunked into water. I could see it being useful if you were carrying it in a bag, crossing over from a dock to a boat and you happen to drop your bag into the water. The ruggedness might be helpful in that case, but you would probably lose your laptop if it was in the same bag.
On the other hand, the shock rating (for drops) would be useful for many people. Things do fall from time to time and with things like mechanical hard drives, a shock can ruin a platter and corrupt data. With the material the ADATA HD710A is built from, it will lessen the shock that the internal hard drive receives. I’ve dropped this particular unit a few times (on purpose) and it has no issues with the data that is stored on it.
After taking the ADATA HD710A to the beach for some fun in the water, I brought it back home and plugged it in. It’s working as if it didn’t have a salt water bath. The data I transferred over is not corrupt and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence around the USB port of any water ingress. That’s great news!
If you are looking for a life-proof 1 or 2 terabyte external hard drive for your Mac, I would recommend looking at the this ADATA offering. Its small form factor allows it to easily fit into a pocket or not take up as much space as other external hard drives of this storage capacity. The USB 3.0 speeds will ensure you can transfer large files in a timely fashion, and with being backwards compatible with USB 2.0, you can access your data from other machines if needed too.
