HyperX Predator 240GB M.2 PCIe SSD Review

At CES 2015 I was introduced to the new HyperX Predator drives and I was instantly impressed for two reasons. 
- First  PCI Express SSD, not much more to be said there.
- Second the M.2 drive came with its own PCI Express adaptor card turning the normally small drive into a full SSD expansion card like the old ones OCZ used to make.

Of course considering that HyperX designed the drive for Enterprise applications you will get a full and half height card bracket giving you three ways to install this single drive.

Most modern motherboards will come equipped with at least one M.2 drive and in these instances you’ll want to remove the drive from the expansion card and install it onboard.  M.2 comes with its own "key" so despite how similar it is to mSATA try not to get them mixed up.

The HyperX Predator is using the Marvell 88SS9293 PCI Express SSD controller allowing the drive to have 1400MB/s Reads and 1000MB/s Writes.  Of course performance can vary depending on available PCI Express lanes and board configuration so consider those numbers as “Hey you can read the manual”

On the Predator drive you will find NAND chips from Toshiba which are likely 32GB MLC chips and occupy both sides of the PCB.  The packaging has come a long way since the large expansion board days due in part to advances in NAND technology and price cuts. 

For this review I opted to use the onboard M.2 slot on the MSI Z170A Gaming M7.  Aside from almost losing the small screw the installation went extremely well and was instantly recognized by the UEFI.

Maybe one of the hidden gems of M.2 onboard SSD’s is how compact they are.  It almost feels like cheating when having the SSD on the motherboard instead of connected via SATA cable.