Packaging

The Drive

The drive uses the M.2 2280 form factor, which makes it 22 mm wide and 80 mm long.


While most other M.2 NVMe SSDs transfer data over the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the FX900 from HP connects to the host system using a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller and two flash chips. The other side of the PCB is empty.


As part of the black top label, HP has installed a heatspreader on the SSD, which uses an approach I've never seen before. Inside the heatspreader we find several sheets of a gray substance—the official claim is "graphene," a material with amazing heat-transfer properties that's comprised of a single layer sheet of carbon atoms. Previously, I've been extremely sceptical about all graphene claims as they didn't withstand the simplest tests. Things are different here since the gray material is electrically conductive (like graphene), brittle, and scrapes off (like graphite). This leads me to believe that the material is carbon indeed, most probably graphite, like in your pencil. Some additional observations I've made are that despite the color, the material is not a paste, and there is no oilyness, so it is definitely not some kind of thermal paste. The heatspreader is attached using sticky tape. In its original form, there's a little bit of air (an insulator) between each sheet.

Chip Component Analysis

This is the second SSD with an Innogrit IG5220 RainierQX controller we're testing. This controller is optimized for low-cost Gen 4 designs without DRAM and manufactured on a 12 nanometer production process.


The two flash chips are Micron 176-layer 3D TLC NAND. They have been rebranded by BIWIN, who's manufacturing this drive for HP. BIWIN buys the wafer from Micron, cuts and test the individual dies, and then packages them into their own chips. Each chip has a capacity of 512 GB.