HP FX900 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD Review

Today we are taking a look at the HP FX900 1TB NVMe SSD. The FX900 Pro that we reviewed recently is HP’s high-end offering, while the FX900 non-Pro we have today is their mainstream model. Thankfully this drive was received in the 1TB capacity point so that it can directly compare to the bulk of my benchmark database in an equal comparison. Overall I have had a decent experience with the HP branded SSDs, so I am hopeful for the FX900.

HP FX900 1TB NVMe SSD

The HP FX900 1TB comes in a single-sided M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor. Unlike the FX900 Pro, there is no strange thermal pad on this drive – the HP label is just a label.

The HP FX900 packs an onboard InnoGrit IG5220 controller and 176-layer TLC. There is no onboard DRAM cache; the IG5220 is designed to use the host memory buffer (HMB) instead of a local DRAM cache. This is one of the main concessions to a more budget-oriented drive; the higher end FX900 Pro includes a local DRAM cache.

As a single-sided drive, the back has a product information label, and nothing else.

HP FX900 SSD Specs

The HP FX900 line of SSDs is available in sizes between 256GB and 2TB.

Today we are looking at the 1TB model of the FX900, which is rated at 5000MB/s sequential read and 4800MB/s sequential write. These specs are somewhat in line with the first-generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs like the original Sabrent Rocket 4 or the current XPG ATOM 50, with which the FX900 shares a controller. This performance target represents a clear performance advantage over the previous top-end PCIe 3.0 SSDs. Additionally, 5000MB/s is close enough that this drive should operate fine in a PS5, though technically Sony recommends 5500 MB/s sequential read performance.

The warranty is the industry standard 5 years which is good. Unfortunately the write endurance comes in at 400 TBW, which is low compared to competing drives. 600TBW is my personal minimum target for endurance on a 1TB SSD, so coming in at 400TBW misses the mark by a somewhat wide margin.

CrystalDiskInfo can give us some basic information about the SSD and confirms we are operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 1.4.

Test System Configuration

We are using the following configuration for this test:

• Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X570-P
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (12C/24T)
• RAM: 2x 16GB DDR4-3200 UDIMMs

Our testing uses the HP FX900 1TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.

Next, we are going to get into our performance testing.