Accessories: 3 out of 5
For the most part we consider the included accessories to be decent but not really noteworthy. Sadly, the area they do standout in is in the USB cable. One short cable that uses a relatively rare header configuration is not a good thing. Silicon Power should have either included an adapter or used the more common ‘micro’ style port on the drive itself. Either would have been a more optimal solution
Read performance: 23 out 25
Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) or not this card is rather peppy for an external storage solution. While we don’t expect external 2.5-inch HDD based models to be speed demons they should never be ‘laggy’ or ‘slow’. Thanks to ultra-dense platters and a veritable ton of r/w heads this drive is fast for a 2.5’inch drive. Not the fastest mind you, but still fast for its class.
Write performance: 34 out of 40
Usually SMR technology is another fancy way of saying ‘lots of space but not much write performance’. Thankfully the new generation of Seagate SMR based drives are actually surprisingly peppy. By staggering which track they write to sequentially this drive’s real-world performance is a lot closer to PMR (aka old-school track layout) models than previous SMR designs. If Seagate keeps this up their SMR based drives really will start to take over the market. Color us impressed.
Warranty: 8 out of 10
This is one area Silicon Power got right. A three year warranty is above average for this price range and is basically 50% longer than what is typically found in this corner of the market.
Value: 19 out of 20
Once again Silicon Power has created an external hard drive is choke full of value. Not only will buyers get a heck of a lot more durability for their dollar with the A85 vs more firmly established brands they will get arguably better looks and just as good to better overall performance. That is a rather potent 1-2-3 combination to say the least.
Final Score: 87 / 100
Much like its little brother the A62, the newer A85 5TB is not perfect, but its combination of performance, durability and price make its value hard to beat. So much so that the occasional misstep can easily be overlooked.
