The HP EX900 Pro is an affordable midrange M.2 NVMe SSD designed to be fast enough for everything without breaking the bank. While some competitors skip the DRAM cache to save a few dollars, the EX900 Pro does include 1 GB of DRAM cache, which helps with those random write workloads.

Internally, the EX900 Pro uses the highly popular and well-tested combination of the Silicon Motion SM2263EN controller paired with 96-layer 3D TLC flash from Intel/Micron. As the host interface, PCI-Express x4 3.0 is used, which should suffice for the EX900 Pro's positioning. In our synthetic testing, we're seeing performance roughly in the middle of the pack, but clearly ahead of the ADATA Swordfish or Falcon and roughly matching the Kingston A2000. Sequential transfer rates are lower because the four-channel flash controller can't push as much data as the eight-channel models on some competitors. In our real-life testing at 80% filled storage capacity, the EX900 Pro does well, reaching performance that's slightly faster than the Crucial P1, ADATA Falcon, and Swordfish, 5% faster than the Sabrent Rocket Q, and 2% slower than the Kingston A2000 and Samsung 970 EVO. The fastest high-end drives are up to 10% faster, but more expensive, too.

Sequential write performance of the HP EX900 Pro is decent, filling the whole drive runs at around 570 MB/s on average, with peaks starting out at almost 2 GB/s. Due to a large SLC cache size of 148 GB, the EX900 Pro can soak up a lot of data before the SLC cache is full, and once that happens, speeds drop gradually. Of course, when you momentarily stop the write activity, the SLC cache will free up capacity immediately, so full write rates are available as soon as you give the drive a moment to settle down. Not much to report on thermals other than that the sensor is extremely optimistic—reported temperatures are around 30 °C lower than actual drive temperatures.

HP's EX900 Pro 1 TB is currently listed online for $110, which is a very reasonable price that's competitive with most other drives on the market. I would pick the HP EX900 Pro over the $140 Samsung 970 EVO any day. The Crucial P1 and Sabrent Rocket Q are $105 and $110, but the EX900 Pro is the better choice here, too, I'd say. There are a few drives on the market that are interesting alternatives to the EX900 Pro, though. For example, the ADATA Swordfish and Falcon drives are just $95. While they lack DRAM cache, both offer pretty much the same speed as the EX900 Pro. Another interesting option is the WD Blue for $95. If you are looking for more performance, you should consider the ADATA SX8200 Pro ($120) and HP EX950 ($130), which are not that much more expensive.