Silicon Power has shown that they're able to make some solid power banks and super budget-friendly m.2 SSDs in our dealings with them in the past. This time around, they've got another drive, but not your average everyday portable drive, either. The Silicon Power Armor A62 is, as its name indicates, a tough external drive that can lets you take your games with you, without worrying about any damage along the way. Rugged durable hard drives aren't that unique to the market, with LaCie having notably made portable MacOS drives for years. However, there's usually a high price to pay when it comes to wanting to make sure your data is protected, come rain, shine, or accidental drops, usually around the $269.99 price point for 5TB. Silicon Power thinks it can one-up the competition by offering something just as good for a fraction of the cost, but is it actually worth the savings?

Speaking from personal experience, I've never been able to have enough room on my consoles. Whether it's the barely-used Xbox One or the PlayStation 4, I'll turn the system on to start a new game, only to be met with a tragic "you're out of space" message. With games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake taking up 1/5th of the PS4's default HDD space alone, it's difficult to keep more than 5 AAA games installed at any one point. Couple that with the fact that neither console feature a decent WiFi chip, and I'm stuck waiting around an entire day just for a single game to redownload. Obviously, the best solution would be to get an external drive to transfer games to when they're not being actively played, which is exactly where the Silicon Power A62 comes in.

In terms of size, the A62 is fairly small--slightly shorter and barely wider than a smartphone. Surrounding the edges of the device is a blue rubber trim, which presumably is there to absorb any shock, should the drive suffer a fall. On first glance, it appeared that the trim was already beginning to separate from the drive, which was a concern, but it turned out that it's an intentional design choice! The trim is ever so slightly looser on two corners, which is meant to allow you to tuck in the included USB cable, so that you can keep it safe during travels. It's an incredibly cute way of keeping the cord with the drive at all times, so that it doesn't get lost or tangled up somewhere in, say, a backpack. 

Speaking of the USB cable, the drive sports a USB 3.2 port, also hidden away under that same blue trim. The rubber material not only helps in terms of drop protection, but it also makes the A62 IPX4 water-resistant as well. There's not many instances where a drive should ever be anywhere near liquid, but it's an appreciated inclusion, and again useful if a water bottle were to break open in one's backpack, or a cup tipped over onto your desk and spilled all over the drive--needless to say, this is a clumsy person's dream drive. 

Internally, the A62 houses a 2.5" Seagate Barracuda drive, with support for either SATA 300 or SATA 600. According to Crystal Disk Info, the drive is a 5400RPM drive, which is nice, as it won't draw too much power from a console's USB port when in use. After copying 1TB's worth of Steam games, the A62 was at a 32C operating temperature (after which it idled and cooled down to 28C), which is impressive if only given the fact that this was done in Texas, where the weather facilitates all kinds of overheating related problems. There were never any temperature throttling issues, which was an initial worry, given the small form factor. 

Copying games to the drive itself was quite speedy, both from the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It was far faster to move giant games like Halo: The Master Chief Collection or Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection than it would have been to redownload them, especially from the notoriously slow PSN servers. Not only that, but moving things like movies or television shows was super snappy, making it easy to quickly grab a movie, put it on the drive, and simply plug it into a media server or computer to watch elsewhere. Both the speed and the portability make this a solid drive for those that have multiples of the same console, have two PC's with the same Steam library, or for those that travel to friends' homes frequently, so you can grab your games quickly and play them.

Actual test data from Crystal Disk Mark shows a more detailed rundown of what you can expect from the A62. On average, the sequential tests showed that the drive could get a reliable 150MB/s read speed, and 125MB/s write speed. It's of course not comparable to an internal SSD or m.2 drive, but you don't really need those kinds of specs on a drive that's mostly meant to serve as game storage. The results are pretty on par with expectations of USB 3.0, and fit the bill nicely for use on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. 

To put it simply: the Silicon Power A62 is a fantastic drive. It feels like it should cost much more than its offered price of $100.00, given both its build quality and performance. I wouldn't hesitate to buy more of these drives, honestly, either as gifts for console gamer friends, or for my ever-amassing library of unplayed Steam games. Some have supposedly reported issues with the drive when used with the PS4, however, it was nothing short of flawless in my experience, making the Silicon Power A62 an easy recommendation.