The HP FX900 Professional is the massive brother of the HP FX900 we just lately reviewed however comes sporting a extra highly effective controller with DRAM. This drive is aimed toward competing with the massive boys — it’s a high-end PCIe 4.0 drive with top-tier efficiency. This locations it instantly towards a few of the greatest SSDs in the marketplace, just like the WD Black SN850, Samsung 980 PRO, Essential P5 Plus, manifold Phison E18 drives just like the Rocket 4 Plus, and even the stellar SK hynix Platinum P41.
Nevertheless, the FX900 Professional’s guarantee and cooling are nothing to jot down residence about, and whereas pricing is aggressive, it is not excellent. It fills the identical slot because the Adata S70 Blade – or the same Premium – making it a considerably cheaper, high-end, 2TB choice for the PlayStation 5 or PC. It may be much less engaging at decrease capacities, although.
It may be difficult to choose a drive within the more and more crowded SSD market, particularly on the high-end. Many individuals can be nice with supposedly lower-end SSDs, too, the HP FX900 being a first-rate instance. The FX900 Professional needs to be compelling towards its direct competitors but additionally has to supply one thing over its extra reasonably priced sibling. Whereas we particularly need to see the way it strains up towards comparable drives, it’s price it to think about whether or not you want that further bandwidth. As with the FX900, the drive is definitely binned and made by BiWin. Let’s see if HP could make one other worthwhile drive — we expect it may possibly.
Specs
| Product | 512GB | 1TB | 2TB | 4TB |
| Pricing | $84.99 | $129.99 | $249.99 | N/A |
| 512GB / 512GB | 512GB / 512GB | 1024GB / 1024GB | 2048GB / 2048GB | 4096GB / 4096GB |
| Type Issue | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 |
| Controller | InnoGrit IG5236 | InnoGrit IG5236 | InnoGrit IG5236 | InnoGrit IG5236 |
| DRAM | DDR4 | DDR4 | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| Flash Reminiscence | 176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R) | 176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R) | 176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R) | 176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R) |
| Sequential Learn | 7,000 MBps | 7,400 MBps | 7,400 MBps | 7,400 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 3,800 MBps | 6,400 MBps | 6,700 MBps | 6,300 MBps |
| Random Learn | 540,000 IOPS | 1,014,000 IOPS | 1,344,000 IOPS | 1,350,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 938,000 IOPS | 1,079,000 IOPS | 1,122,000 IOPS | 1,150,000 IOPS |
| Safety | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Endurance (TBW) | 300 TBW | 600 TBW | 1200 TBW | 2400 TBW |
| Half Quantity | 4A3T9AA | 4A3U0AA | 4A3U1AA | 4A3U2AA |
| Guarantee | 5-12 months | 5-12 months | 5-12 months | 5-12 months |
The FX900 Professional is available in 4 capacities of 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, though the ultimate capability is, as of but, troublesome to seek out. The 1TB and 2TB capacities have the most effective dollar-per-GB pricing, with the 2TB SKU coming in a bit cheaper than the SK hynix Platinum P41. As of the time of the evaluate, the FX900 Professional matches the Amazon worth of the 2TB S70 Blade, which has primarily the identical {hardware}. Nonetheless, the FX900 Professional is an inexpensive various.
As with the FX900, HP’s IOPS scores appear a bit on the excessive aspect. The FX900 Professional’s InnoGrit IG5236 controller is formally rated for as much as 1M/800,000 learn/write IOPS, which this drive exceeds even at 1TB. Peak efficiency is at 2TB, which is sensible as you should have the optimum quantity of dies for interleaving. This mannequin is pegged at 7.4/6.7 GBps of sequential learn/write throughput, so there’s no query it is a high-end PCIe 4.0 drive.
The guarantee is a regular five-year affair with an endurance score of 600 TB of write endurance per 1TB of SSD capability. That is throughout the typical vary for higher-end drives. Some may lament the endurance decline from the heights seen with Phison E12 and E16 drives, but it surely’s actually not an enormous deal. It’s difficult to try this many writes throughout the guarantee interval.
A Nearer Look
The entrance of the drive has a graphene warmth spreader underneath the label. It’s thicker than you’ll in any other case count on. Later, we’ll see if that helps. The controller resides in the midst of the stick, surrounded by two NAND packages and a DRAM module. The again label covers two extra NAND packages and extra DRAM and incorporates primary details about the drive.
InnoGrit has been round for a couple of years however is a relative newcomer to the buyer SSD controller recreation. Whereas its early controllers left one thing to be desired, the PCIe 4.0 designs have been fairly aggressive. This explicit controller is poised to compete with the most effective in the marketplace.
The NANYA DRAM is labeled NT5AD512M16A4. That is DDR4 in a 512M x 16b configuration for a complete of 1GB. As there are two modules, the overall DRAM capability measures 2GB. That is what you’ll historically count on for a 2TB SSD, however many more recent fashions skimp right here to save lots of a bit of cash. Whereas this quantity of DRAM is greater than sufficient for caching metadata for even prosumer workloads, it’s at all times good to see.
The flash is labeled BW29F4T08ENLEE. This tells us that it’s binned by BiWin however is predicated on Micron (MT29) flash, on this case, 176-layer B47R. It’s typically doable to find out the era with the ultimate letters within the code. Within the center the 4T tells us it’s 4Tb or 512GB, and with 4 packages whole that offers us 2TB of “08” or 8-bit flash. We could possibly discern the manufacturing date with the underside quantity, “2125” being week 25 of 2021, however that is of secondary significance.
As talked about above within the specs part, the 2TB model of this drive has the very best efficiency on paper. Micron’s 176-layer TLC makes use of 512Gb, or 64GB dies, which implies you may have 32 dies right here — that’s 4 dies for every of the controller’s eight channels. That’s certainly the perfect quantity for peak interleaving. If we learn from the controller, we see a pace of 1200 MT/s from this flash, which is greater than enough with an eight-channel drive with 1600 MT/s channels. That is beneath some 1600 MT/s B47R we have now seen, although.
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