HP ex950 SSD questions

[ochadd]

When looking at new SSDs I keep coming back to this drive. It seems to check the correct boxes. 8 channel controller, TLC, on-board RAM, and great 4kQD1 in reviews. Downsides seem to be the lack of software suite and virtually no information that I can find on HP's website. A review site said it was a SM2262EN controller. Can anyone comment how the performance holds up over time? My 960 EVO performance has gone down significantly since new, my 850 pro is now on par with it. Is there any software suite or firmware update mechanism? Anything else to know living with the drive over time?

 

[Maxx]

Very good drive. Yeah, there's no software and HP's support is lackluster. However in my opinion you don't need software for NVMe drives. The E12-based drives don't even have drivers available. With the EX950 you can use Intel or SMI drives in addition to Microsoft's, though.

Yes, it uses the SM2262EN, check my resources if you want to do more research. I've written dozens of posts on the EX950 and similar drives (SX8200/S11 Pro). The 960 EVO is still a solid drive, it should not degrade like that unless you have something configured incorrectly like no TRIM on Windows 7 (Windows 10 will do retrim automatically for detected SSDs). Although you don't explain what you mean by "performance" - you have to understand the numbers on the box are, to put it nicely, marketing lies.

All NAND-based SSDs will lose performance over time with use, particularly after being written once and when fuller. It's the nature of the technology. Again, check my resources. The EX950 for its part is probably the fastest consumer NVMe drive on the market - that is, for consumer workloads.

 

[ochadd]

I'm looking at an upgrade for capacity more than speed. The 960 evo is fast enough but latency has doubled and 4kQD1 benchmarks have come down about 10% since new. The latency is identical to my 850 pro and within 1 MBps on 4kQD1. It's fully optimized + shortstroked (overprovisioned).

 

[Maxx]

OP is no longer necessary - leaving free space is generally sufficient for consumer usage thanks to dynamic over-provisioning. But in any case, for capacity you can really go with whatever's cheapest. Although the EX950 and its analogues (SX8200/S11 Pro) have been ~$250 at 2TB recently.

 

[munkle]

Honestly I would avoid it simply because everything I have read says HP basically treats this drive as it doesn't exist when you need support, including when it dies. There are lots of other drives with the same controller, as mentioned before, around the same price that will have at least some level of decent support. I have the S11 pro and its been fine, even fits in my laptop with the heatsink on.

 

[rhkcommander959]

Honestly I would avoid it simply because everything I have read says HP basically treats this drive as it doesn't exist when you need support, including when it dies.

This is something I've heard a lot too. I'm giving the Sabrent 2TB Rocket a shot now, although I heard they lowered it's DRAM with a new controller. I'm hoping it is comparable, I'm not willing to deal with HPs lack of support.

A year or so ago I did setup a triple raid 0 array with 1TB EX920s for a friend, and they are still going strong. Storage capacity, speed, and bragging rights were his goals and the drives were priced affordably. We used an MSI z270 Titanium for the triple raid, each drive got a heatsink, overall it looks beautiful.

 

[Maxx]

Support would be handled by something like Multipointe for the HP drives, but the ADATA drives (same hardware) are also options.