ADATA HD710M/ A Pro: Rugged, stylish data banks

ADATA recently updated their HD710 Pro line- up and, this time, has added a rugged design to their popular series. The HD710M Pro is an external HDD that’s been preformatted in FAT32 for both Mac and the Windows, while their HD710A Pro has been preformatted in the HFS+ format that’s compatible with the macOS.

With the ADATA HD710M Pro, the brand has chosen a brown camouflage military design which in a way indicates that it is a robust and rugged hard disk drive. The external area of the drive is fitted with a camouflage printed silicone rubber that is designed to absorb shocks from regular drops and bumps. The centre is designed using what appears to be tough black plastic that is translucent to show the blue LED indicator when it is connected.

The MacOS HD710A Pro variant comes in a minimalistic white and grey exterior that compliments the ‘ Apple’ colour.

The design of the HD710 Pro features an ingress protection of IP68. This means that it can be submerged in two metres of water for as long as 60 m i n u t e s . While this is o b v i o u s l y overkill for a hard drive, it is reassuring to know that it can be safe from accidental water spillage and dust.

To connect the cable to the drive, there is a bay that houses the connector. This is protected by a flap that doesn’t appear to be as secure as the rest of the drive - it pops out easily rather than staying tight.

The drives also come with Shock Sensor technology, so when large shocks or vibrations are detected during data transfer, a red LED light will warn you and the devices internal protection mechanisms will be activated to safeguard the data. This drive is pretty fast and it should be able to transfer file dumps of over 10GB in just under two minutes. With this being said, we feel that most consumers of this hard drive are not really intending on purchasing it for its speed but more for its anti- shock and durability features. The ADATA HD710M Pro 2TB drive is priced at ` 9,999 while the HD710A Pro 1TB HDD costs ` 7,999. For external hard drives in 2018, these prices seem slightly on the steeper side. However, being durable and having triplelayer anti- shock properties and also faring significantly well in Read/ Write performances, this is a great drive and definitely worth your money.