Silicon Power Ace A55 Review

The Silicon Power Ace A55 is a SATA SSD designed to be an affordable replacement to traditional HDDs. It uses the 3D TLC NAND technology and offers a maximum read and write speed of 560 / 530MB/s using SATA 3.0 interface.

The Ace 55 is available in capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB and is backed by a 3-year warranty. In terms of durability the Ace 55 offers 1,500,000 hours MTBF.

Features:

• Adopts TLC 3D NAND flash and “SLC Cache technology” to improve overall performance
• 15 x faster than a standard 5400 HDD with SATA III 6Gb/s interface
• 7 mm slim design suitable for laptops
• Supports TRIM command and Garbage Collection technology
• NCQ and RAID ready
• ECC technology to guarantee reliable data transmission
• S.M.A.R.T. monitoring system
• Low power consumption, shock and vibration-proof, noiseless and low latency
• SP ToolBox software for monitoring analysis report, extent of consumption and SSD diagnostics

Specifications

Packaging & Design

The packaging comes in a simple cardboard box with a see-through plastic blister.

Inside, we have the just the SSD, no manuals or mounting screws. The Ace 55 is a 2.5-inch standard format SATA 3 SSD with 7 mm thickness and is also compatible with laptops that support SATA SSDs.

The exterior case is a glossy black and made of aluminium, measures 100.1mm x 69.9mm x 7mm and weighs 63g. On the top are the brand logo, product name and certifications. The design is really good and can look nice in almost all PC cases.

Performance

Our review unit is the 1TB version. For the performance tests we have used the following hardware. On paper, performance should be 560 MB/s in sequential reading and 530 MB/s in writing.

• Thermaltake H200 Case
• ASUS B550-F Wi-Fi Motherboard
• ASUS Ryzen 5 3600
• BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3
• MSI 5700 XT Gaming X
• Cougar GX-F AURUM 650W PSU
• Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 RAM
• WD Black SN750 SSD (OS)

In CrystalDiskMark, the Silicon Power Ace 55 comes out with 556 MB/s and 457 MB/s in sequential reading and writing In ATTO Disk we see rates above 552 MB/s in reading and 432 MB/s in writing.

During daily use, file transfers with the Ace 55 remains stable at around 400 MB/s, which is good. The overall performance is almost the same as specified by Silicon Power but there were some inconsistencies in the write speeds.

In our Final Fantasy XIV StormBlood test, a benchmark that simulates game load time, the Ace 55 came out with a load time of 18.70 seconds.

With regards to temperature, the Ace 55 never exceeded 45C even at maximum performance during our tests.

Software

Silicon Power’s SSD storage software is known as SP Toolbox. The software is fairly basic and offers very few settings except the essentials.

Verdict

The Silicon Power Ace A55 1TB is an entry-level SATA SSD for those looking for a fast and cost-effective secondary storage solution.

This is a good choice if it’s your first upgrade from traditional HDD’s as it is relatively cheap at AED 330 (USD 90) and offers decent performance in addition to the 3-year warranty.