Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB m.2 PCIe SSD Review

[Guest]

Today we review Kingston's HyperX Predator m.2 PCIe SSD - the first commercially available drive based on Marvel's 88SS9293 "Altaplus" controller.

Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB m.2 PCIe SSD Review : Read more

 

[blackmagnum]

A fast and furious SSD most suited for desktops, but doesn't work well with mobile notebooks? I don't know how Kingston will be able to compete with this product!

 

[mapesdhs]

"After using the software, you simply tell the BIOS to boot from the Kingston SSD and everything works as it should."

After first disconnecting the old device though, because otherwise Windows won't boot - it assumes the presence of another Win inst with the same ID is suspicious. I'm surprised this isn't mentioned more often when free cloning sw is highlighted in an SSD's accessory package.

Re pricing, the tiny difference between the M.2 and PCIe versions shows just how much one gets ripped off when buying other types of HBA, given Kingston is happy for the gap to be just $12, though I don't get why the gap is larger for the 480GB when it's the same item that's excluded for the M.2 version.

Personally, depsite the performance of this device, the small warranty would put me off.

Ian.

 

[MxMatrix]

How about adding nvme based Intel 750 400gb SSD to the equation?

 

[mapesdhs]

How about adding nvme based Intel 750 400gb SSD to the equation?

Yes, that and one good standard SATA3 for comparison, preferably the 850 Pro 512GB.

Btw, is it just me for whom all the thumbnail images in the results galleries are blank?

Ian.

 

[milkod2001]

it might be easier for readers to understand if you stick with just numbers instead of millions of colorful lines all over the place.

it would be nice to have comparison with regular SSD. Is it better than that. I can't tell from this review

 

[CRamseyer]

How about adding nvme based Intel 750 400gb SSD to the equation?

At the time I didn't have the Intel SSD 750 400GB. I do now and the review should come out very soon.

 

[CRamseyer]

it might be easier for readers to understand if you stick with just numbers instead of millions of colorful lines all over the place.

it would be nice to have comparison with regular SSD. Is it better than that. I can't tell from this review

I'm just about finished with an article that puts the SM951-NVMe and SM951 AHCI against an 850 Pro.

Even without the data to compare in this review we know that the 850 Pro (512GB and 1TB) does roughly 550 MB/s sequential read, a bit over 500 MB/s sequential write, 98K random read IOPS and roughly 90K write IOPS in my testing.

If you compare equal capacity sizes, nearly every product in this review performs better than 850 Pro.

I'm up against a hard limit of the number of products I can put in the charts without needing a magnifying glass to look at the data. I'll see about coming up with something a little better for the Best of SSD Monthly column.

 

[milkod2001]

it might be easier for readers to understand if you stick with just numbers instead of millions of colorful lines all over the place.

it would be nice to have comparison with regular SSD. Is it better than that. I can't tell from this review

I'm just about finished with an article that puts the SM951-NVMe and SM951 AHCI against an 850 Pro.

Even without the data to compare in this review we know that the 850 Pro (512GB and 1TB) does roughly 550 MB/s sequential read, a bit over 500 MB/s sequential write, 98K random read IOPS and roughly 90K write IOPS in my testing.

If you compare equal capacity sizes, nearly every product in this review performs better than 850 Pro.

I'm up against a hard limit of the number of products I can put in the charts without needing a magnifying glass to look at the data. I'll see about coming up with something a little better for the Best of SSD Monthly column.

it might be easier for readers to understand if you stick with just numbers instead of millions of colorful lines all over the place.

it would be nice to have comparison with regular SSD. Is it better than that. I can't tell from this review

I'm just about finished with an article that puts the SM951-NVMe and SM951 AHCI against an 850 Pro.

Even without the data to compare in this review we know that the 850 Pro (512GB and 1TB) does roughly 550 MB/s sequential read, a bit over 500 MB/s sequential write, 98K random read IOPS and roughly 90K write IOPS in my testing.

If you compare equal capacity sizes, nearly every product in this review performs better than 850 Pro.

I'm up against a hard limit of the number of products I can put in the charts without needing a magnifying glass to look at the data. I'll see about coming up with something a little better for the Best of SSD Monthly column.

it might be easier for readers to understand if you stick with just numbers instead of millions of colorful lines all over the place.

it would be nice to have comparison with regular SSD. Is it better than that. I can't tell from this review

I'm just about finished with an article that puts the SM951-NVMe and SM951 AHCI against an 850 Pro.

Even without the data to compare in this review we know that the 850 Pro (512GB and 1TB) does roughly 550 MB/s sequential read, a bit over 500 MB/s sequential write, 98K random read IOPS and roughly 90K write IOPS in my testing.

If you compare equal capacity sizes, nearly every product in this review performs better than 850 Pro.

I'm up against a hard limit of the number of products I can put in the charts without needing a magnifying glass to look at the data. I'll see about coming up with something a little better for the Best of SSD Monthly column.

great thanks, im looking forward to that

im currently on Sammy 830 and just wanted to know if this product would give me more performance. I wanted to know what difference i will see in boot times, loading applications/games times and basically if it's worth to get PCI SSD over regular SSD in real world applications.

There's something which is not directly an issue of the review, something what you might want to forward to this site development team though. It's the slider arrows. Probably the biggest ever It's OK in this review but in many cases in overlaps important content. There might be an option to pick different styles with smaller arrows,make them visible only when hover over etc. I bit of CSS could easily do miracles

 

[BoredErica]

I would LOVE another article with trace-based analysis of game loads to figure out what type of load a game puts on a drive. I can't find a good tool to do it myself.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Great drive! I'm planning on saving up for the 240GB version (unless better nvme drives come out soon).

While the power usage is a little high compared to other m.2 drives, this drive is designed specifically for desktops (you can tell from PCIE adapters, to the looks of the drive, and the power consumption) not notebooks.

 

[ralanahm]

I like where storage is going now it has been the bottle neck for a while to development for a new take on software. Advance seem to happen in stages after a bottle neck has been opened for a while.
I personally own a Muskin Scorpion Deluxe 1920GB that is rated close to 2GB per second.
http://poweredbymushkin.com/catalog/item/36-scorpion-deluxe/840-scorpion-deluxe-1920gb

Is is i possible for me to borrow to Tom's or Chris in this case for a month for testing so it can be added to these charts too? I got it about six months ago and love it. Well except the boot adds about 30 seconds for the raid to start, but once you hit windows everything is instant.

Also if you want a great clone program use can use Macrium Reflect http://www.macrium.com/ there is a free version or business version. It has good updates, just run on current drive or a second drive make an image, then restore image to new drive. Everything will be perfect just like you rebooted. I use it to make a copy of a perfect working copy of my PC to trouble shoot software problems later because it doesn't copy pagefile or hibernate-file a fresh install pc is just a few gigs for back-up WAY better then windows restore.

 

[josejones]

I feel like I'm in crazy town, why waste any time on PCIe 2.0 at all when PCIe 3.0 has been out for some time now?

 

[CRamseyer]

I'm right there with you but some users will want to look at PCIe 2.0 products without adapters for use in motherboard m.2 slots. Not every board shipped with 3.0 x4.

 

[MarkW]

PCIe 2.0 versions are just way too expensive. No reason they need to be double the cost of M.2. When pricing gets down to where it should be, I do expect to buy a PCIe 3.0 based SSD that is bootable.

 

[Brian_R170]

I feel like I'm in crazy town, why waste any time on PCIe 2.0 at all when PCIe 3.0 has been out for some time now?

I was thinking that maybe it's PCIe 2.0 because most of the mobile platforms still have only 2.0 slots, but then I saw the 35% drop in notebook battery life. I guess that's not it because it sure doesn't look like mobile platforms were a priority.

 

[Gurg]

I bought the 240 Gb for $249 from Newegg as a boot drive over the Samsung 951 because of reviews I saw that indicated that the Samsung could get very hot and throttle. Not sure I could ever put enough activity through it to cause that but didn't want to run the chance with a super hot card mounted right under my GPU card in the M.2 slot, just as I wasn't concerned about losing a little top end speed vs the 951.

$249 for the 240Gb M,2 HyperX Predator vs $193 for a far slower 256 Gb top of the line new SATA Samsung Pro. The pricing in the article links is a little nuts as the 480 in m.2 is selling for $489 on Newegg.

 

[MarkW]

An SSD that gets hot? Seriously? They have no moving parts. And they spend like 99.99% of their time in our computers doing absolutely nothing. Except waiting on us.

Maybe in a server that is constantly working the SSD I could see one getting warm, maybe even hot, but not in a persons personal computer.

 

[Gurg]

An SSD that gets hot? Seriously? They have no moving parts. And they spend like 99.99% of their time in our computers doing absolutely nothing. Except waiting on us.

Maybe in a server that is constantly working the SSD I could see one getting warm, maybe even hot, but not in a persons personal computer.

http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_161689/3

 

[Gurg]

An SSD that gets hot? Seriously? They have no moving parts. And they spend like 99.99% of their time in our computers doing absolutely nothing. Except waiting on us.

Maybe in a server that is constantly working the SSD I could see one getting warm, maybe even hot, but not in a persons personal computer.

http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_161689/3

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/PCIe-SSD-Roundup-Samsung-SM951-NVMe-vs-AHCI-XP941-SSD-750-and-More/Power-Consumption

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/samsung-sm951-m-2-pcie-ssd-review-512gb/5/

 

[MarkW]

I read the ssd review... They clearly stated that while IN THEIR TESTING it got nice and warm, that we, consumers, would never see those temps. We simply never push 256GB into a 256GB SSD in 20 minutes.

Even when we think we are pushing our SSD's hard, they are idle 99% of the time. Only if you are running benchmarks, or crunching massive databases constantly for hours might you ever even have a chance to generate the heat these benchmark people do in 20 mins.

Think of it this way. If you go buy a Lamborghini, do you ever drive it with the pedal smashed up against the floorboard non-stop for 20 minutes? Of course not. Just like you won't push 256 GB into a 256GB SSD in 20 minutes either. The vast majority of us do not even own a second SSD to be able to do that with. And that is what it would take to even attempt that.

 

[wielk]

"With that said, the on-board OROM makes the drive flexible enough to use with just about every motherboard." Would it also be compatible with an Asus P6T motherboard?

 

[MarkW]

Yes, just be sure to go into the BIOS and turn on the AHCI setting on before you do anything to the SSD.

 

[mapesdhs]

Yes it'll work ok with a P6T, but then so will any SSD, it's just that the Kingston and all other modern SSDs will revert back to SATA2 mode, so you'll not really see the benefit of any of the differences between the various newer models except perhaps wherever 4K access matters. Even so, using an SSD with a SATA2 system still has huge benefits, I tested various models with a P55 a while ago.

Ian.

 

[wielk]

Yes it'll work ok with a P6T, but then so will any SSD, it's just that the Kingston and all other modern SSDs will revert back to SATA2 mode, so you'll not really see the benefit of any of the differences between the various newer models except perhaps wherever 4K access matters. Even so, using an SSD with a SATA2 system still has huge benefits, I tested various models with a P55 a while ago.

Ian.

OK Thanks, but with the adapter bracket it uses PCIe and not SATA2, so it should be much faster than a SATA2 mode SSD, or am I wrong?.