The HP EX920 M.2 SSD Review: Finding the Mainstream Sweet Spot
by Billy Tallis on July 9, 2018 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The average data rates from the HP EX920 on the Light test aren't particularly impressive, with most high-end NVMe SSDs turning in higher scores. But the EX920 doesn't fall behind by enough to worry about-it's still several times faster than SATA drives, and close enough to the fastest drives that the difference isn't noticeable during ordinary usage.
The average and 99th percentile latency scores from the HP EX920 on the Light test aren't the best, but they're definitely good enough. Even the full-drive latency is not a problem, unlike for the smaller Intel 760p or 600p.
Average read and write latencies from the HP EX920 are good, especially when the test is run on a full drive. Both latency measurements stay at just a fraction of the latency of the Crucial MX500 SATA SSD.
The 99th percentile read and write latency scores from the HP EX920 are great, especially for the full-drive test run where the EX920 keeps tighter control on read latencies than any other flash-based SSD we've tested.
On the Light test, the HP EX920 doesn't fall quite as clearly into the power-hungry club. Its total energy usage on the Light test is still a bit above average, especially for the full-drive test run, but it is clearly using less energy than the M9Pe or 970 EVO.
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DanNeely - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
The same ignorant rage about SSD costs that the clueless have been spouting for the last decade.0ldman79 - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
The numbers can all be skewed if you change how you measure them.How much does 1 gram of sand cost? A bit of PCB? Copper tracings?
Gotta ignore the labor, R&D, foundries, etc...
That's like the genius fixing the giant machine for $2,000. Itemized invoice, $2 for turning the screw, $1998 for knowing which screw to turn.
philehidiot - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
That's my job. It's easy but requires skills and knowledge.But they pay me bugger all.
Cliff34 - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
They don't want to drop the price more because it will eat into their margin.That's how the ssd market is. Your lowest is the sata. With nvmd, it is a higher price points (same spec).
Of course they can drop the price, but why would they do that when they can make more per unit knowing that many people who buy nvm often don't have a choice for sata.
ATC9001 - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - link
Exactly....I mean who wouldn't want to get a lot more performance for the same price as a consumer? If they stopped charging premiums there wouldnt be any money left over for R&D for what comes after nvm. Also, if you can afford these large SSD's I really don;t wanna hear whining about the price....talk about a first world problem.MrSpadge - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
http://www.insye.com/DP/NANDFlashSpotPrice.aspxEven with 512 Gbit TLC chips (best price per capacity, slowest) the NAND alone will currently cost 9$/chip, i.e. 144$. And you need a bit more than that to build a SSD.
Samus - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
$20 bucks LOL. Controllers alone cost nearly that!FullmetalTitan - Thursday, July 12, 2018 - link
The memory controller alone probably wholesales for ~$12-18, so I don't know where you are getting those numbers.Death666Angel - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
"the flip side is that its pricing is noticeably lower than the flagships from more established SSD brands like Samsung and Western Digital." Unfortunately not true in Germany. :( Doesn't seem to be fully released here, 3 retailers offer it, but those 3 are large ones.Vanguarde - Monday, July 9, 2018 - link
These will sell like hot cakes if they put the 1TB out for $39.99