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Well, it has been some time since we have reviewed the Kingston HyperX Predator. Back in March we were lucky enough to not only review one of these drives, but also two in RAID 0! The HyperX Predator is currently their top tier storage product. Powered by a Marvell PCIe 2.0 x4 controller and Toshiba A19 NAND, it delivers great performance numbers, up to 1.4GB/s read and 1GB/s write. Not only that, it is available in both a M.2 2280 form factor and HHHL form factor via an included adapter and comes with a 3-yr warranty.
If you have kept up with us or the SSD industry in the past year you know that the Samsung SM951 M.2 SSDs put up some very worthy competition against the HyperX Predator. Furthermore, Samsung is releasing the 950 Pro very soon. So what makes the HyperX so special?
This M.2 SSD is the perfect candidate for older systems which don’t support UEFI booting as it comes with its very own OPROM. This compatibility feature alone is great for those who don’t need to upgrade their platform but could utilize the higher bandwidth this drive delivers. Second of all these drives have very high endurance ratings, up to 415TB for the 240GB model and 882TB for the 480GB model. These are numbers are double the specs of the Samsung 950 Pro’s and blow the SM951’s out of the water. So no matter what the workload, especially heavy media editing, you should have plenty of endurance for your workflow.
The pricing on the HyperX Predator is that of a premium product. The 240GB model is currently going for $205 including the HHHL adapter. The 480GB model is going for $450 with the adapter as well. Without the adapter you can save $10 0n the 480GB model, but the 240GB model comes at a $13 premium, thus the model with the adapter at this capacity is a much better buy whether you need it or not.
One thing that should be noted as of now, however, is that current HyperX Predator owners are reporting issues in upgrading to Windows 10. Clean installs seem to work flawlessly and we typically suggest a clean install over cloning or upgrading anyways. This is important to some nonetheless, especially those who are taking advantage of the free upgrade license to Windows 10. Kingston is currently looking into this and preparing a firmware fix. One poster even mentions that he actually received the firmware update as of yesterday, but it is not officially up on Kingston’s website, so we wouldn’t suggest using it quite yet.
*Update* – Official firmware update is now available.
With all that said, if the Kingston HyperX predator is a drive that interests you, be sure to…
Giving endurance to a dinosaur is an interesting strategy.
Can @thessdreview put a list of these adapter cards that has their own oprom ?