Introduction

I remember the very first USB 3.0 enclosure I tested. The Buffalo unit was more than just the first USB 3.0 external drive I tested; it was the very first review ever written on a USB 3.0 external enclosure where benchmarks were also provided. As you can imagine, I was very excited to review the first USB 3.0 product online, but that excitement quickly went away when I realized I would need to talk about pricing. Last November that 2TB Buffalo DriveStation 2TB cost a whopping 399.99. There just isn't enough whisky in Lynchburg to dull that pain.

Luckily for us, time heals all pains and A-DATA is now in the USB 3.0 external storage market. The new Nobility NH03 is an external HDD that connects to your computer's USB 2.0 or 3.0 port and provides high speed storage for your archival needs. As if that weren't enough on its own, A-DATA has included enterprise class 256bit AES encryption to keep your data safe from prying eyes and included a software bundle that includes PCCloneEx as well as TurboHDD software that works as a driver upgrade, enabling read performance increases.

I think the best feature of the NH03 is the one we have come to expect from A-DATA with all of their products, the price. Our 1TB sample is currently on its way to Newegg and is available for preorder today for just over 100 USD.

Specifications, Pricing and Availability

A-DATA's website shows three Nobility NH03 models and they differ in capacity sizes. A-DATA will offer 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB drives, but as of now Newegg only lists the 1TB available for 109.99 USD. At that price the A-DATA NH03 is the lowest cost USB 3.0 1TB drive listed at Newegg and its closest competition only includes a 500GB HDD. The other two capacity sizes should be available in a couple of weeks and the humming bird told us 152.30 for the 1.5TB and 183.85 for the massive 2TB model. These prices are also very competitive with what the market has to offer.

When it comes to portability, most users look at the weight of an external drive and the cable system. The Nobility NH03 weighs 1Kg or for those in the US, around 2.2 pounds. This isn't a book bag friendly weight, but if you really need to take the NH03 with you it isn't all that bad. The cabling requires external power that is fed through a power brick and that can complicate things a bit if you are short on power plug.

After formatting and overhead, we ended up with 931GB of user available space from the Nobility NH03.