Sony’s New ‘Ultra-Tough’ Drives Can Handle 3 feet of Water

If making the world’s toughest memory card wasn’t enough, Sony has decided to step up its storage game and announce two ‘ultra-tough’ external hard drives, capable of performing under serious stress.

These storage units are supposedly capable of withstanding 3 feet of water, drops of up to 9 feet, and more pressure than a manager at the World Cup Final (up to 6000kgf, to be precise, with an added 2000kgf bending). 

How can it do it? Well, it’s all down to Sony’s “one-piece aluminium body” coupled with an “omni-directional shockproof construction”. Such durable build quality means this hard drive is perfect for the amateur explorer ready to tackle extreme environments.

But with great power, comes great performance. The superior SL-M version has a read and write speed of up to 1000MB/s, and the SL-C a soild 540MB/s read spped and 520MB/s write speed. Both models also come equipped with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB Type-C) interface, and the SL-M can perform at lightning speeds when used with NVMe SSD technology.

With both models featuring the latest SSD controllers, high-performance speeds won’t be sacrificed on the altar of large data files, meaning 4K videos, high-res images, and duplicated files can be dealt with in a digital breeze.

On the chance you lose your drive in 3 feet of water, to be found by marauding pirates or treasure-seeking scuba divers, then fear not. Sony has included password protected AES 256-bit encryption, without any speed decline. Dual password protection is also integrated on the SSD Utility app.

Sony are also including the Lifetime Checker as part of the SSD Utility app, which checks the condition of the storage drive “so the user can be prepared when they’re reaching their limit”. File rescue software will also be available.

Both models will be available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB versions. Expected to be available in summer 2019, pricing is yet to be confirmed.