HP SSD EX950 M.2 2TB Review

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(Updated 09-14-2022)

This is a quick breakdown of the HP EX950 M.2 nvme ssd drive. This drive is offered by HP, channel partner Multi-pointe, and, or, a company called  BIWIN Storage—as mentioned in a firmware update review by W1zzard over at Techpowerup. So obtaining clarity on warranty claims could be an interesting journey of revelation, unless HP is handling that directly.

We’ll view this ssd as compared to a few of the other popular drives on the market: The Samsung 970 Evo, Samsung 970 Pro, and WD Black SN750.

We can see in the image below that this SSD comes with a black color PCB, and the solder points look clean and well-finished.

The documentation declares that this drive is accompanied by a 5-year warranty, though it isn’t quite clear to us whether that warranty is serviced by Multipointe, HP, or Biwin. We will include links to those sites below.

The form factor is the more common 2280 and comes with a mounting screw for installation.

According to Hard Disk Sentinel, this drive reports 64MB of cache. This accompanies the onboard DRAM cache configuration—which appears to be 1Gbx8 channels for 1GB of DRAM potential (according to a Micron parts FBGA search for the D9STQ, the model outlined in the image below).

HD Sentinel reports that the drive we have is equipped with a Silicon Motion SM2262EN controller and Micron 64-layer 3D (TLC) NAND. When comparing the equipped NAND, we see the HP EX950 2TB finds the most familiar company with the SN750:

• 96-layer (TLC) in the Samsung 970 EVO Plus
• 64-layer (MLC) in the 970 PRO
• 64-layer (TLC) in the WD SN750

We can see in the video clip below, the cache on the EX950 gets saturated pretty quickly for being a 2 Terabyte drive. During this sequential file transfer it had to struggle a little to keep up with the much smaller Samsung 970 Pro 500 Gigabyte drive; though the Samsung is utilizing 2-bit MLC NAND vs the 3-bit TLC in the EX950.

*Keep in mind: when comparing benchmark results, the same version of benchmarking software should be utilized for both tests (CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2 x64 in this case).

CrystalDiskMark6.0.2 x64:
https://crystalmark.info/en/download/

We’ve had the HP EX950 2TB installed in a system as a mass storage drive for the last 3 years, and it’s still running without issue, with zero reported smart errors according to HD Sentinel.

Some of the specs from HP channel partner Multipointe:

Model	HP SSD EX950 M.2
Capacity	512GB	1TB	2TB
Part Number	5MS22AA#ABC	5MS23AA#ABC	5MS24AA#ABC
Interface
HP SSD EX950 M.2 2280	PCleGen3(8Gb/s)×4，NVMe1.3
Performance
Max. sequential reading speed	3500MB/s	3500MB/s	3500MB/s
Max. sequential writing speed	2250MB/s	2900MB/s	2900MB/s
Random reading speed	390K IOPS	410K IOPS	410K IOPS
Random writing speed	370K IOPS	370K IOPS	380K IOPS
Reliability
MTBF	Up to 2 million hours
Environment
Storage temperature	-40°C ~ 85°C
Operating temperature	0~70°C
Max. vibration Resistance	100 G/6 msec
Certifications	CE、CB、FCC、cTUVus、KCC、BSMI、VCCI、RoHS、RCM
Dimensions & Weight
Size	80x 22 mm
Thickness	≤3.8mm
Weight	≤5.4g
Limited Warranty	5 Years or 320TBW	5 Years or 650TBW	5 Years or 1400TBW
*The speed tests were conducted in HP LABS. Actual end user results may vary due to different system or hardware environments.

HP EX950 Documentation Links:

https://www.multipointe.com/ex950-m2/

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-ex950-m.2-solid-state-drives/32206825

BIWIN Storage