Kingston today announced new HyperX Predator PCI-Express 2.0 x 4 SSDs during CES. The SSD manufacturer claims the SSDs are able to achieve sequential read and write speeds of respectively 1.4 and 1GB/s.
For now the drives will be available in capacities in 240GB and 480GB with an expected launch date in February this year. Later also a 960GB capacity drive should become available as well.
The SSDs can be fitted in a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot and the HyperX Predator drives are available in the M.2 formfactor. Optionally a half height, half-length (HHHL) adapter is available making it possible to use the drives in mainboards without a M.2 socket.
By switching to PCI-EXpress from SATA-3 , the drives bypass a speed bottleneck. Many high-end SSDs are able to deliver much higher speeds than the SATA-3 interface allows. According to Kingston the HyperX Predator drives are bootable using default AHCI drives.
The drives contain a Marvell 88SS9293 controller combined with unknown NAND. Kingston specifies read speeds of up 1.4GB/s and writes speed of up to 1GB/s. Kingston hasn't disclosed pricing information or IOPS performance numbers.
