BambiBoomZ wrote:Hello,
M.2 drives have greatly advanced in cost / performance and the recent release of the Samsung NVme 960 Evo is particularly interesting:
- SEQUENTIAL READ
Up to 3,200 MB/sec
- SEQUENTIAL WRITE
250 GB: Up to 1,500 MB/sec
500 GB: Up to 1,800 MB/sec
1000 GB: Up to 1,900 MB/sec- RANDOM READ (4KB, QD32)
250 GB: Up to 330,000 IOPS (Thread 4)
500 GB: Up to 330,000 IOPS (Thread 4)
1000 GB: Up to 380,000 IOPS (Thread 4)- RANDOM WRITE (4KB, QD32)
250 GB: Up to 300,000 IOPS (Thread 4)
500 GB: Up to 330,000 IOPS (Thread 4)
1000 GB: Up to 360,000 IOPS (Thread 4)- RANDOM READ (4KB, QD1)
Up to 14,000 IOPS (Thread 1)
- RANDOM WRITE (4KB, QD1)
Up to 50,000 IOPS (Thread 1)
As these results approach those of the Samsung 960 Pro, the fastest drives available- but quite expensive, the 960 Evo 250GB costs $130, 500GB: $250 (960 Pro 512GB= $330), and 1TB: $480 (960Pro 1TB=$630), the 96- Evo is very attractive to comtemplate using.
The performance of NVMe drives is very good in zX20 workstations. On Passmark baseiines, a z420 / 950 Pro 256GB NVME has a Disk Mark of 15187. For comparison, my z420 /Samsung SM951 256GB AHCI has a mark of 11559. In the z620 the AHCI mysteriously rates higher than the 950 Pro NVme, with a top mark of 13928 for the SM951 AHCI ( <Forum friend Brian1965). The HP Z-Turbo Drive 256GB AHCI I use in a z620 is second at 13426 and the top mark for the 950 Pro 256GB NVMe is 12690. In the world of z820's, a dual E5-2687w v2 / Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe system produces 12261 and a Samsung SM951 NVMe = 12141.
However, in the HP z-X20 series systems, the only boot-capable NVMe drive out of the box appears to be the quite expensive Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe (256Gb = $300, 512GB=$480) which has an internal BIOS that allows the system to recognize it as a boot device.
The sequence of modifying a system for NVMe support is complex. See:
"Guide about how to get full NVME support"
Which in effect decribes techniques by which is, "probably valid for all Intel 6,7,8,,and 9-series chipset systems", using UEFI BIOS, by adding a mainboard EFI module to BIOS. But, that is an expert procedure and like modiying the registery, a risky one.
With more affordable, high performance NVMe drives, that probably many users that would like to install on zX20 systems, without complex modifications to the system BIOS, I am curious to know if HP would consider releasing BIOS for zX20 systems with NVMe support?
BambiBoomZ
I run the Passmark disk benchmark on my Z420 + Samsung 950 Pro and got varying results. Best result out of three was 14222, the other two results were around 11500 and 12200. Bearing in mind that other disk benchmarking software e.g. Crystal Disk or the test in the Samsung Magician app returns consistant results (c.a. read 2100MB/s, write 950MB/s) I am not really convinced to what extent these results can be trusted. BTW worst result was first, then best, then the intermediate one, so any 'overheating' theories can be thrown out the window.
As for other NVMe drives, would be interested whether the Intel 600p drives work, since these are relatively inexpensive and offer good performance.
I would not count on HP putting in any additional features into the Zx20 bios since they have the Zx40 line out and NVMe is one of the upsides for upgrading . At the end of the day until you actually test a drive you can't 100% say whether it is compatible or not - the 950 Pro I have was left over from a Z170 build I dismantled and sold off and I recall various posts i.a. on this forum saying 'it will not work, you have to have a Zx40 for NVMe' yet it works fine.