I can't say enough how impressed I am with PCIe SSD's,whenever one is released to the market I feel very much compelled to give it some coverage. The latest as such that has pretty much gained my attention is the new Kingston Hyper X Predator PCIe SSD.
The compact nature of the storage drive is not what makes it unique,nor is it the fact that its an actual SSD that seats right into your PCIe slot, it's the blazing speed of the drive that takes center stage.
The Hyper X Predator has based its entire operative hardware on its Marvell 88SS9293 controller (Controllers are components that enables hard drives to transfer and read/write data). It has a blazing read and write speeds of up to 1,400MB/s and 1,000MBs,like I said,it's respectively ultra fast.The read/write numbers are based on the 480GB drive.
There is of course a 240GB model that can pretty much reach the same read speed and up to 600MB/s for writes,its based on compress data transfer on the ATTO benchmarks. Kingston has stated by saying the 240GB model can reach up to 130,000 random 4K read IOPS and up to 118,000 random 4K write IOPS.
Thing you must know is with PCIe based SSD's upon installation must be on a motherboard that has a M.2. socket. If by chance you don't have a M.2 socket on that particular motherboard, you'll need a Half -Height ,Half-Length adapter(HHHL for short) which Kingston will provide for an extra $18 price tag.
PCIe based SSD's seems like they're slightly coming down in price oppose what they cost when they first came on the scene few year ago. With that said, for the average PC builder,the price of the Hyer X Predator is still insanely expensive. If you're interested in purchasing such hardware and have money to throw around, here's the listed prices:
- 240GB M.2 (SHPM2280P2/240G): $382
- 480GB M.2 (SHPM2280P2/480G): $764
- 240GB HHHL (SHPM2280P2H/240G): $400
- 480GB HHHL (SHPM2280P2/480G):$782
The new Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe SSD is now available at Amazon,Newegg, and TigerDirect.