Review on High-Performance HP EX920 512GB PCIe NVMe 3D 💾 TLC NAND SSD for Optimal Internal Storage - 2YY46AA#ABC by Aaron Johnson

I never thought I'd buy or review an HP SSD, but it's 2018 and here we are. I knew very little about the EX920 beforehand, but I was looking for a 1TB SSD and like everyone else on the market, I immediately went with the 960 EVO. However, at the time of this review, the 1TB 960 EVO is priced at $450. The HP Ex920 came in at a mere $370 for a 1TB drive. I had to triple check all the specs to make sure it was indeed an NVME drive or there might be no hidden issues. To my surprise, the reviews for this disc are very positive. Performance is on par with the 960 EVO and approaches the 960 PRO category in some performance metrics. The chips themselves are Micron/Crucial 64-layer 3D TLC NAND while the memory is NANYA chips. Both are leaders in the SSD/storage game. The controller is Silicon Motion SM2262, the same controller found in many SSDs, including Intel. On paper, the HP EX920 gets a lot right: 3,200 reads, 1,800 writes. To my surprise, my tests confirmed the specifications. Honestly, I can't find anything wrong with this disc. The packaging was top-notch, the specs are good, and at $80 the speed is below the market leader. The SSD even has a tiny red LED on the chip that lets you know it's reading/writing, just like old hard drives. This is a nice feature that many SSDs lack. Helps you to know if your drive is working or not. The only thing I would say is that they should have included a heatsink to dissipate heat. For example, the 960 series had a copper-colored heat dissipation sticker on the back. To be honest, I don't know if this drive has an overheating issue, but rigorous testing hasn't shown a significant drop in performance so far. Thanks to HP for the kick out of the park! *** EDIT DEC 2018 *** My CD still plays great. However, I recently bought another one from Best Buy on Ebay for my desktop and the temperature on the SMART sensors shows a steady 54 degrees C. My original drive, which I bought here at Revain and is reviewed here, shows that Temperature change on the load as it should be. Apparently all new EX920 SSDs starting around September/October 2018 have this issue. It's not a real overheating issue, it's just stuck. On the network, many wrote that the problem lies in the firmware. The new firmware is SVN139B and the old firmware SVN101 works fine. My SSD is on a desktop with a heatsink on top and fans creating airflow so I doubt it will ever overheat. However, until HP fixes this issue, newer versions of this drive may also experience this issue. An update that fixes the temperature issue. I can't link to Revain but if you search the web for the EX920 firmware update you will come to the right place. After the update, my 1TB drive (with a heatsink on a desktop computer) was at around 20 degrees, which is pretty good. Much luck!