17 Feb 2017 > This post is substantially edited to reflect new information
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)
These results approach those of the Samsung 960 Pro, the fastest drives available. However, the question is whether the 960 Evo may be used as a boot drive on an HP zX20 series system.
As NVMe memory post-dates the zX20 controller design, the special BIOS requirements for NVMe have to be added. The Samsung 950 Pro does have that capability- but are quite expensive.
In the HP zX20 series systems, the only boot-capable NVMe drive out of the box has been 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 performance of the Samsung 950 Pro NVMe drives is very good in zX20 workstations. On Passmark baselines, a z420 / 950 Pro 256GB NVME has a Disk Mark of 15187. For comparison, on the z420, a Samsung SM951 256GB AHCI has a top mark of 13928. The SM951 AHCI installed in the z620 (of forum friend Brian1965). In the z620, the HP Z Turbo Drive, which has the same Samsung SM951 AHCI drive appears to be well optimized , and made a Passmark Disk Mark of 13426, whereas the top mark for the 950 Pro 256GB NVMe is 12690. In z820's, a dual E5-2687w v2 / Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe system produces 12261 and a Samsung SM951 NVMe = 12141.
However, the Samsung SM951 AHCI 256GB currently costs $360 to 310, the 950 Pro 256GB costs $300+ whiile the 960 Evo 250GB costs $130 and the 500GB version: $250. (960 Pro 512GB= $480) The perofrmnace at so much lower cost means the 960 Evo is very attractive.
The generic 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, seems a bit risky.
The Samsung 960 Evo user manual indicates that in system having a UEFI Bios v.2.3 or after, the Samsung NVM Express driver 2.1 driver supports the Samsung NVMe SSD 960 PRO, 960 EVO and 950 PRO. The installation appears quite straightforward, the drive has to be already installed in the system to load the driver. Elsewhere, I saw notation that the drive has to be GPT partitioning and not MBR, but I can't confirm that aspect.
So, the range of NVMe M.2 drives usable as the boot drive in zX20's is limited using the Samsung NVMe Driver 2.1.exe , but as it includes the very attractively priced 960 Evo, that's good news. I should mention that I haven't yet seen any banchmark results for the Samsung 960 Evo in an HP zX20, but i'm very optimistic.
BambiBoomZ
PS: Other very good news for zX20 users: the announcement of the new series of Quadro Pascal GPU's. These ae priced similarly to the Maxwell /Kepler counterparts and the performance is fantastic, the P2000 5GB outperforming the M4000 8GB in a number of uses.