Adata Nobility NH03 3 TB in the test: Fast backup drive thanks to USB 3.0

introduction

In some of our recent drive tests, external 2.5-inch hard drives with a USB 3.0 connection had to show how fast they are. The Adata Nobility NH03, in which the Taiwanese install 3.5-inch hard drives with storage capacities between 1 TB and 3 TB, is also external but a number larger. We tested the largest variant with 3 TB.

Adata Nobility NH03 3 TB

As the hard drive supplier, Adata relies on Seagate and Hitachi for the 3 TB version of the Nobility NH03, with a drive from Seagate in our test sample. It is a 3 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14, which operates at a spindle speed of 7,200 rpm and has a 64 MB cache. When exchanging data with the computer, it should achieve transfer rates of up to 140 MB / s thanks to USB 3.0.

The fanless housing with a high-gloss finish has a backup button that can be used to back up previously defined data in conjunction with the supplied software at the push of a button. There was no space for the power supply in the relatively compact housing, which is why it was carried out externally. In contrast to most external 2.5-inch hard drives, the NH03 also has a power switch with which the hard drive can be switched off completely. However, there is no provision for an easy way to replace the hard drive itself. As far as visible from the outside, it seems to be usually screwed to a metal slide, but the housing cannot be easily opened.

The full functionality of Adata's external hard drive can only be experienced in connection with the three programs from FNet, which are on the drive or can be downloaded, but are only available as Windows versions. PCClone EX from FNet is used to provide the backup functions including "one-touch backup". In addition to the settings for the one-touch backup, the program also offers the option of creating backup plans for regularly backing up files and folders and to encrypt the data backups.

A general encryption of part of the drive or the entire drive with AES 256 can be achieved with SecureDrive EX2. During installation, a slider can be used to determine how large the protected and the unprotected partition should be. However, data already on the hard disk should be backed up before installation, since the program deletes the entire hard disk.

The third program is the TurboHDD USB hard drive, which is supposed to accelerate the transfer rates through more efficient transfer. We will take a closer look at how well or badly this works in the context of the benchmarks.

On the next page: test system