It has been a few month since we had the chance to take a look at the latest from ADATA, more specifically the DashDrive line-up. So after talking to ADATA, I was able to snatch up a sample of the latest HV620 in the massive 2TB capacity.
Initially launching the HV620 in up to 1TB capacities, it seems as if ADATA went back to the drawing board to offer something no one to this point has been able to, a 2.5" external drive with tremendous 2TB capacity. Some of the features of the HV620 include a scratch prevention design offering a raised lip on the outside of the enclosure and of course, access to ADATAs line-up of software including HDDtoGo and OStoGo - Norton Internet Security is also included.
The ADATA DashDrive HV620 maintains compatibility with current Windows operating systems next to Linux Kernel 2.6+ and Mac OS X 10.6+ and is backed with a three year warranty.
Included with the DashDrive HV620 you will find the USB 3.0 cable, allowing for plug and play capability. Additionally, a quick start guide is included.
The front of the drive carries a high gloss appearance, and does tend to attract fingerprints.
At the bottom of the drive you will find the USB 3.0 connection.
Here you can see the raised edge of the HV620. This allows the edge to contact the surface of the table or desk before the glossy portion of the drive, enabling scratch prevention.
Internally, the HV620 utilizes the Toshiba MQ01ABB200 2TB drive.
The controller for the HV620 is manufactured by VLI and is labelled VL701-T4.
Benchmarking external hard drives will consist of three pieces of software. The first is ATTO for marketing performance followed up by CrystalDiskMark to test NCQ at QD32 keeping in mind that for an external storage device to support NCQ it must also have UASP support. The last is DiskBench for the real-world aspect of things.
The ADATA HV620 is factory formatted with the FAT32 file system, giving us 1.81TB of useable storage.
ATTO results were quite impressive, with the HV620 peaking at 119 MB/s read and 117 MB/s write.
CDM results were again similar to ATTO, where we found the HV620 reaching 119 MB/s read and 117 MB/s write.
Comparing the ADATA HV620 to many of the drive in our chart, you will quickly find its one of the top performers at 112 MB/s in real-world testing.
The ADATA HV620 is the true next generation of 2.5" external storage, coming in with a tremendous 2TB peak capacity. Additionally, the drive does carry a bit of aesthetic appeal, and though it does seemingly attract every finger print within a 10 ft. radius, by leveraging what ADATA calls scratch prevention with the raised lip at the outer most edge, you can rest assured your drive won't get nicked up by setting it down on your desk.
Performance of the unit was great and is something I can truly respect with chart leading performance in our real-world testing and touching close to 120 MB/s in both ATTO and CDM.
Pricing of this drive is a bit shocking, in a good way - I was able to find this drive in the 2TB capacity for a very comforting $139.99 at several online retailers.