Recently we took a long hard look at the Silicon Power Armor A85 5TB external hard drive storage solution and walked away very impressed with what Silicon Power was able to create. Without entirely rehashing that article, and in short summary, the A85 proved to be incredibly durable, fairly fast, and rather attractive external storage device. The fact that it also costs significantly less than what more firmly established competitors was simply icing. It did however pose a very interesting question as Silicon Power also has a ‘M’ variant that costs $385 – or 15 dollars more than the standard A85 5TB model.
Specifically, we were asked by a few readers across the pond on how the Armor A85M 5TB varied from the non-M variant we reviewed. On first blush there does not appear to be much difference. Just like the A85 5TB, the Silicon Power A85M 5TB is IP68 rated, comes clad in an aluminum enclosure that has a crush rating of 500 kilograms, is just as elegant looking… and basically comes with identical performance specifications. The only noticeably difference is the Armor A85M is meant for Apple ‘Mac’ systems. Needless to say we were unable to give a clear answer on what this difference actually means. After reaching out to Silicon Power we can now show what exactly makes the A85M tick… and why it costs $15 more than the ‘standard’ A85 5TB capacity option.
So lets take a deep dive into the Armor A85M, see what Silicon Power has actually done differently and then we can go over the pros and cons of this variant versus the A85 5TB. Then maybe we can help bring clarity to two models that are awfully close and help all our readers make an informed decision on which option is right for them. Needless to say, what we found was interesting to say the least. So sit back, relax, and click on the next page to see what we found out.
