Brian1965,
The Samsung SM951 AHCI is just miles better than almost any other SSD that can be used in older systems. I have one in a z420 (E5-1660 v2 / 32GB / Quadro K4200 / Intel 730 480GB) on a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe adapter card (about US$22). I updated the BIOS to the latest as recommended- apprarently, some earlier zX20's won't see an M.2 as a boot drive. After setting up the partition /formatting, the z420 saw it immediately and the OS/programs were migrated from the Intel 730. After resetting the boot order it worked extremely well.
The Intel 730 480GB in the z420 had a Passmark Disk rating of 4794- still quite good and changed to 11559 with the SM951. As great as the performance is by the numbers, it seems as though little changed in terms of disk function time elapsing. save large transfers. Startup time was slightly faster. I was hoping it would very noticeably speed up the time saving large (200MB+) 3D CAD models, but the disk is waiting on the CPU.
I see that there are instructions on the way to convert the BIOS in z420, z620, and z820 to UEFI-Based:
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c03465686
> and - correct this if wrong but it means that with some degree of fuss, an HP zX20 can use NVMe. There is a z420 on Passmark Performance Test baselines listed as having an Samsung 950 Pro 256GB NVMe and with the 2nd highest z620 disk score of 15187 Highest is 21138 :"Areca ARC-1880-Vol#000". A quick scan of z620 results doesn't show any other disk mark for an M.2 although these could be hiding behing a RAID controller as those appear as the boot drive.
My current project is upgrading a z620 to use as a rendering and for calculation- intensive work: analysis, Matlab, simulations, and etc. (Replaces Dell Precision T5500 / 2X X5680/ 48GB / Quadro K2200). The z620 arrived with an E5-1620 / 8GB / and Firepro V5900 (2GB)/ 1X 750 + 2X 500GB HD. In progress, this is now 2X E5-2690 / 40GB / Quadro K2200, eventually 64GB and Quadro M2000.
The z620 setup is being done on the dog's dinner of elderly SATAII drives. The debate though is whether to add an HP Z Turbo Drive 256GB G3G88AA, which uses the Samsung SM951 AHCI as the drive, or use the Intel 730 from the z420. Disk (and 3D) speed is not the highest priority in the z620 as it gets projects that more or less run on their own- a few minutes over 10 or 20 hours is not critical. Have you found siginificant advantages to the SM951 in your z620?
Do you recognize this z620 baseline on Passmark: Rating = 4335 / CPU=19578 / 2D= 518 / 3D =0.0 / Mem- 2207 / Disk (SanDisk Ultra II) : 3743. > If so, I'd enjoy knowing the Passmark disk score using the SM951.
My z620 originally: HP z620 (Original) Xeon E5-1620 4-core @ 3.6 /3.8GHz) / 8GB (1X 8GB DDR3-1333) / AMD Firepro V5900 (2GB) / Seagate Barracuda 750GB + Samsung 500GB + WD 500GB
[ Passmark System Rating= 2268 / CPU= 8361 / 2D= 857 / 3D = 1608 / Mem =1584 / Disk = 574 ] 7.13.16 - not too bad for a $270 system,..
First revision:
HP z620 (Rev 1) Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz) / 40GB (4X 8GB +4X 2GB DDR3-1600) / AMD Firepro V5900 (2GB) / Seagate Barracuda 750GB + Samsung 500Gb + WD 500GB / 800W > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >
[ Passmark System Rating= 2304 / CPU= 14732 / 2D= 723 / 3D = 1665/ Mem =2709 / Disk = 456 ] 7.20.16> -the second lowest disk score!
There are 5 of 157, z620's on Passmark with 3D = 0.0
Cheers,
BambiBoomZ
HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16