
The Bottom Line

For those that need a great amount of storage capacity, external hard drives are an excellent way of accomplishing that goal. While solutions like these aren't the most technologically advanced, the ability to back up your data and archive it within its own enclosure is rather simple and cost effective at the same time.
Today we have in house the latest external hard drive solution from Silicon Power. The Stream S06 is a portable 3.5" solution featuring 2TB, 3TB and 4TB capacities, utilizing the USB 3.0 interface. Compatibility of the S06 extends to modern Windows operating systems and OS X 10.5+ and Linux kernel 2.4+.
MSRP of the Silicon Power S06 in the 3TB flavour is listed at $114.99 with a three-year warranty.

Packaging for the S06 carries the capacity in bold print, while the drive itself is pictured to the right.

Scope of delivery for the S06 includes a power cable, USB 3.0 cable, and reading materials.

The front of the S06 carries a rather simple design. Most of the enclosure is made of plastic with a handle at the top for taking the drive with you.

The bottom of the enclosure houses the USB 3.0 input, with power to the far left.

The drive used internally in the S06 is the Seagate Barracuda 3TB.

Our sequential testing for the S06 allowed the drive to bring in 191 MB/s read and 190 MB/s write.

DiskBench testing showed the S06 did quite well with real-world data. Here we have 174 MB/s with MKV, 97 MB/s with JPG and 62 MB/s with Doc files.
The Silicon Power S06 is a high capacity solution for those wanting to take their data with them or even for archiving purposes. The build quality of the enclosure seems to be quite good, all the plastics used feel well put together, and the handle feels sturdy enough for the enclosure itself.
Performance of the S06 was quite good as well. In our sequential testing, we found the drive capable of 190 MB/s read and DiskBench testing showed this was actually the quickest external hard drive we have tested to date as far as write speeds go.
Overall, the Stream S06 is quite a capable solution for capacity driven storage, while not sacrificing performance in this day and age. It also comes in at a solid price point for what you get.
