Silicon Power Diamond D06

[testman78]

Introduction

If you are constantly on the go,carring an external drive to keep all of the ever-growing digital content in this digital age is essential. Storing content on the Cloud means it can be accessed easily, but only if there is an internet connection available. The old and trusty external storage via flash drive or hard drive is the way to go when you need to access large contents of data quickly offline.Portable hard disk drives launch all the time, which means that their makers have to always add something new, or change something that's already there in order for sales to go well.The New Diamond D06 from Silicon Power is clear evidence of this.Silicon Power is a relatively new company which was founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiast engineers and experts in flash media. Silicon Power describes itself as passionate, creative, and hungry for success.Silicon Power offers various storage products, including USB flash drives, flash memory cards, RAM and also Solid State Drives.



There used to be a time when portable HDDs didn't have more than 500 GB or 1 TB capacity,but that has since changed,even for 2.5-inch models like the one that Silicon Power has just unveiled.The newcomer, called Diamond D06 as i said before,has three capacity options.Two are the ones above, the third is 2 TB,a full double compared to the next best.Silicon Power Diamond D06 is compatible with essentially every operating system worth mentioning:Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux 2.6.31 or later, and Mac OS 10.5 or later.As for the design, it is the reason that the new product range has the name it bears. The hardware is encased in a plastic shell with a diamond pattern and colored completely black.




Packaging & Contents

Silicon Power ships the drive in a full color cardboard box with a large window, so that you may take a good look at the drive.The front of the box is has the same design that we saw with the Armor D03,but with different colours.On the left side you can see all the basic info that you need to know about the drive.



On the rear of the box we get a more detailed view of the Diamond D06 such as size of the drive, OSs compatibility list, package contents, and the rest of the info that you can view in the below picture.



You will not receive a lot of extras.The company only includes a USB 3.0 cable and a use manual within the package.On the other hand, you won't need anything else anyways.




A Closer Look

The D06 drive presents itself with a scratch-resistant plastic enclosure and the activity LED,along with the SP logo are also located here.



The laterals of the enclosure are made from shiny black plastic.On the bottom we'll see the total drive capacity.Thanks to the included 2.5'' drive, the product is very light, weighting only 174 grams.



In the back,we'll find the usual USB 3.0 connector.SP Diamond D06 applies the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 transfer interface which delivers surprisingly high transfer rate up to 5Gbps (Read/Write), also ten times the speed of USB 2.0.



When data is transferred to or from the drive, the activity LED will pulsate blue.Diamond D06 is perfectly green and time-saving with the sleep mode that can greatly reduce power consumption and avoid unnecessary waits for reboot.




Software
In addition, SP Widget that features seven major backup and security tools can be downloaded free of charge from SP official web site.I will say that the SP Widget software is very easy to use and has a bunch of features that might be of interest to you.



Click on "My Documents backup", it will begin scanning for the system's current designated.Click on "PC-lock" and it will provide password,time designation and Storage device.



You can start to experience the features of SP Widget, such as Backup my document, Folder backup, Data encryption,my favorites backup, Email backup, PC lock and Norton Antivirus.



At the contents section, there are three options: 1. Backup from PC to Storage device, 2. Backup from Storage device to PC and 3. Synchronization backup between Storage device and PC .Please note, options 1 and 2 will overwrite existing files with the same name regardless of current or older file dates. Option 3 will overwrite older files with new ones.





Test system

For testing, the drive is all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. I try to use free or easily available programs so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.



Main system:

CPU: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooler: Corsair h80
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Memory: Kingston DDR3 2000mhz 9-11-9-24
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000w
Graphics: Sapphire 7950
Chassis: Corsair 800d
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate
Monitor: Dell U3011

I've got the 1GB model plugged into my test bed, so let's get on and run some numbers.



Test Results

The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD).The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are performed without using the operating system caches. In Sequential tests the program measures the time it takes to read and write a 1GB file respectively.The 2.5" Silicon Power Diamond D06 is quick off the mark to show what it’s made of with both read and write speeds passing over the 100MB/s mark with ease.



Within ATTO,we can see that underneath the cover the drive is able to give near 120MB/s read and write speeds.



Like ATTO,CDM gives us similarly high read and write figures.Looking at the 512k sector as well, the drive also performs very well with well over 63MB/s write and 43MB/s read.



Hard drives as we know are not built for IOPs performance,but with around 137 IOPs read and write, this number is on par for a drive of this calibre in a single disk setup.




Temperature

For starters,its operating temperature is only 29 degrees Celsius, which means it's not even warm to the touch.The maximum temperature of 42 degrees Celsius,is still well within an acceptable range.




Conclusion

Diamond D06 is an expression and a statement of your impeccable taste for fashion.The new D06 Diamond Series Portable HDDs from Silicon Power are speedy,come in different capacity flavors and are sporting a catchy design.D06 also comes with a power saving mode and a LED indicator for indicating the power and transfer data status.The build quality of the Diamond D06 is very good and feels like it can take some abuse.Silicon Power has even paid special attention to data safety and has included antivirus software with every HDD.A 60-day trial version of NIS (Norton Internet Security) to be precise, plus the free download of the SP Widget,which includes seven major backup and security tools.




All Silicon Power portable hard drive products are backed by a 3-year warranty.As far as value goes, the Diamond D06 is a winner.I was able to find this 1TB drive online for about 60 British Pounds, which is a great price for a drive with that much capacity (and isn't some cheap no name brand).At the end of the day i can easily recommend the Silicon Power Diamond D06 1TB USB 3.0 HDD.Just like previous Silicon Power products i have looked at,the Diamond D06 is a solid product with good performance and a very affordable price tag.