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: 16 out of 20
On the one hand this is still one of the best deals going for buyers looking for a device that offers robustness, good looks, and good performance. On the other, it costs more than the non-M variant for little real-world gain. Thankfully it is only $15 (USD) in the difference so for the convenience factor some will find its value to be worth the little bit extra surcharge.
Final Score: 84 out of 100
The Silicon Power Armor A85M 5TB is a very good external storage solution that will not be out of place on a high end OSX system. The only minor issue is that the non-M variant will look just as good and only take a quick formatting and software download to work just as well. That is the fly in the ointment of an otherwise excellent device.
