MP 6,1 HP EX950 2TB SSD: 1 Month Review

[Digital_Frank]

This forum has been a great help for me to understand what my upgrade options are for my 4 core Trashcan Mac Pro running 10.14.6.

So, I wanted to share my results.

I use my Mac Pro to edit video and typically have the source files, proxies, etc on the fastest drive I have.
That meant my OWC Aura 1TB drive was running out of room.

After a lot of searching for 2 TB SSD for a reasonable cost (<$400 Canadian) I purchased a HP EX950 2TB SSD and the SinTech adapter. (NGFF M.2 PCIe SSD Card as 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD)

How Fast Is it?

This is twice as fast as the OWC Aura and the original Apple SSD.

How Hot Does It Get? (Without heat sink)

Not very hot at all. While editing or rendering video it was around 40C without a heat sink.
The highest temperature I saw was when I copied 800 GB of videos to it and it slowly ramped up to 70C during the copy, then cooled off to about 40C.


Does it Wake from Sleep OK?
I use sleep all the time and it works without issues.


Did You Notice the Speed Increase?
Nope! I thought apps would start faster or editing video would be a little snappier, but I didn't notice any difference.
My fastest external drive is about 800 MB/s so there is no decrease in time moving large files.

However, I can copy from the EX950 SSD to two external drives at almost 800MB/s to each drive.


Summary
The 2TB HP EX950 was easy to install (physical & OS), runs cool without a heat sink and is an affordable 2TB option.

 

[tsialex]

Thx for your report. Nice to see another M.2 blade that works fine with MP6,1.

If your M.2 SSD got to 70ºC just copying 800GB of files, install a heatsink.

70ºC is the maximum lifetime temperature for a lot of blades, you should never get near of that temperature. I only found the spec sheet on the HP site for the 512GB model, 70ºC is the max temperature too.

 

[Snow Tiger]

I tried to find the recommended temps for this NVMe from HP as well - and found nothing .

I agree with @tsialex . Find some way of cooling that drive as 70 C will reduce its durability and throttle its performance.

Always place a heatsink with thermal gap material(s) on a NVMe drive .

That will keep that drive cool under load . Take particular care to place tight fitting thermal gap material onto the controller chip of the drive .

 

[Digital_Frank]

I did purchase a EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink, but is not designed to work on a double sided SSD, like the EX950.

However, since the temps are around 40C 99.9% of the time, I am not in a rush to source a double-sided SSD heatsink. Unless someone knows of one

The SSD has only hit 70C once. That was right after installing the OS and copying 800GB of files to it.
I wonder if spotlight was indexing the drive while I way copying the files. In the next few weeks, I will copy over another 800GB and see if the temps climb up again.


The EX950 specs are below:

 

[Snow Tiger]

I did purchase a EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink, but is not designed to work on a double sided SSD, like the EX950.

However, since the temps are around 40C 99% of the time, I am not in a rush to source a double-sided SSD heatsink. Unless you know of one

The EX950 specs are below:
(Yes, they were difficult to find!)

See if you can secure some tight fitting independent piece(s) of thermal gap material under the NVMe and use the one sided sink over that . Placing thermal gap material under the drive will be tricky , since it will have an uneven surface . You will need to make certain the gap material presses tightly against either the GPU leaf spring or the GPU's PCB fiberglass .