Performance: 30 out of 40.
These days the noticeable performance difference between a ‘30’ and a ‘40’ SATA SSD will fall somewhere between jack and squat… and jack left to get a pack of smokes four years ago and his family has not seen him since. If you are looking for performance… SATA is not right for you. SATA is slow by modern standards.
Technological Innovation: 12 out of 20
On the one hand Silicon Power A55 series is one of the few drives available (right now) that makes use of 96Layer ‘3rd generation’ CuA TLC NAND. On the other… there is no real-world difference between CuA gen 2.2 and CuA gen 3 beyond its asking price. We would have preferred tried and true Toshiba BiCS NAND. The same is true of the 2259XT vs 2258XT – there is really no real ‘wow’ factor to be had (beyond better ECC and a faster NANDXtend engine being used). The only real innovation to be found is using a M.2 form-factor for a SATA drive in 2020… now that is unusual.
Build Quality & Warranty: 18 out of 20
While we are not overly enamored with DRAM-less controllers it does allow Silicon Power the luxury of using more NAND ICs with fewer stacks of die packs per ‘chip’ and only having to use one side of the M.2’s PCB for the components. Mix in a decent 3 year warranty and beyond the controversial controller few will have reason to complain about the build quality or warranty.
Value: 12 out of 20
With a hundred dollar’ish NVMe M.2 1TB’ers readily available the overall value proposition of spending 80 dollars vs 100 does not favor the A55 series in most builds. This is going to be a niche drive series. One in which if you are not in this niche the value is going to be low. With that said for its niche the A55 is a rather decent value. We have split the difference and called it 12 out of 20.
Final Score: 72 out of 100
The Silicon Power A55 is going to be a siren call for those who fall inside its design envelope. Sadly, it is a rather small group of people who will fall inside this envelope. Instead, for most potential buyers the overall value of the A55 is going to be eclipsed by its bigger brother the A60.
