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‎03-06-2017 08:18 PM - edited ‎03-06-2017 08:42 PM

HP Recommended
Product: Z820
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit)

Hello guys,
I need some help.. I'm planning to buy Samsung SSD Pro 960 M.2 NVMe. Is it usable on my HP Z820 /the BIOS is J63 v03.91/  ?
I know that there is no M.2 slot on the motherboard, so I would need to use some adapter like Asus Hyper M.2 x4 Mini.
I've read here that some people succeeded with adding Samsung Pro 950 via Asus  Hyper M.2 x4 Mini on HP Z620.
I won't use the SSD as OS boot drive. Just I have heavy projects and need much faster loading.
Thank you in advance, folks!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

‎03-10-2017 10:05 PM - edited ‎03-10-2017 10:29 PM

HP Recommended
@Thurisaz wrote:
Thank you for the reply, MthotaJ!
Well, the Samsung NVMe Driver v. 2.1 offically has support for Windows 7. It shouldn't be a problem to be installed.
I sent an e-mail to the technical support of Samsung about this  Haswell / Sandy Bridge case, which I have.
What version is the Samsung NVMe Driver, you have on your PC?
Greetings

 

I am using v2.1, and previously have used the earlier versions.

With regard to the CPU, this is a non-issue. My feeling is that with a drive of this calibre they do not recommend using an old / underpowered processor since this might bottle neck the SSD, however the E5 Xeon processors -while not the newest - are anything but undepowered and comfortably keep up with newer CPU's - I am getting the full read / write speed on the 950 Pro as advertised by Samsung. There might also be the question of that earlier CPU's lack the bios support for NVMe, however in our case - at least with this family of NVMe SSD's - this is also not a problem.

 

Just so that you are assured further:

 

- 950 Pro in my Z420 as seen in HP Performance Advisor:

 

 

- Crystal Disk disk speed benchmark (960 Pro will obviously be faster):

 

 

View solution in original post

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17 REPLIES 17

‎03-07-2017 01:38 AM

HP Recommended

There are multiple posts on this subject, so check the forum. The short answer is that the drive will work in the Zx20 both as a boot disk or a standard add-on disk. 

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‎03-07-2017 02:24 AM

HP Recommended

Thank you for the reply, MtothaJ
Sorry for that I'm asking again this question! I made search about it on Google, and here, but didn't find any posts on this topic.
The only thing I found were some posts about Samsung Pro 950 and Samsung SM951
This one:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/SM951-M-2-SSD-in-a-...
and this one:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/NVMe-PCIe-SSD-boot-...

... but nothing about this Samsung Pro 960 M.2 NVMe

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‎03-09-2017 03:18 AM

HP Recommended

Guys, I found Angelbird Wings PX 1 adapter - http://www.angelbird.com/en/prod/wings-px1-1117/, but I can't find any information about compatibility with HP Z820. Does someone has any experience to share with me?
Thank you in advance! 🙂

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‎03-09-2017 03:25 AM

HP Recommended

Price for this adapter is extortionate. Just get an 5-15 USD adapter from Aliexpress and you will be fine.

Go for active or passive cooling if you want - a lot of different versions are available.

If you want a brand name part, you can also get the Asus Hyper m.2 adapter card, but again - it is very expensive for what it is and your disk will not work any better.

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‎03-09-2017 05:29 AM

HP Recommended

Thank you once again for the reply, MtothaJ! 🙂
I'm looking for good M.2 to PCI-E adapter with good passive cooling because the ssd will be on heavy load, and of course, this adapter to be compatible with the workstation and the ssd.
I've seen some benchmarks about the performace of Samsung 950 Pro between Angelbird Wings PX1, Asus Hyper M.2 x4 and native motherboard M.2 slot. The highest scores were achieved by the Angelbird.
Amfeltec has quadruple slot adapter with active cooler, but it's too noisy, and I'm not pretty sure is it enough funtional, or not. In general is nice to have more slots for such SSDs
Greetings! 🙂

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‎03-10-2017 01:56 PM

HP Recommended

I have one question, and I hope it would be the last one about the topic... Do I need to install this Samsung NVME Driver for Samsung Pro 960?
I checked the requierments of the driver:
"System Requirements
The driver supports Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
Recommended system configuration (minimum):
- Intel Haswell Refresh Processor"
My processors are Sandy - Bridge ... Intel Xeon E5-2670 (2.6GHz - 3GHz) Octa-Core /  http://ark.intel.com/products/64595/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2670-20M-Cache-2_60-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-Q... /
Greeting! 🙂

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‎03-10-2017 02:06 PM

HP Recommended
@Thurisaz wrote:

I have one question, and I hope it would be the last one about the topic... Do I need to install this Samsung NVME Driver for Samsung Pro 960?
I checked the requierments of the driver:
"System Requirements
The driver supports Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
Recommended system configuration (minimum):
- Intel Haswell Refresh Processor"
My processors are Sandy - Bridge ... Intel Xeon E5-2670 (2.6GHz - 3GHz) Octa-Core /  http://ark.intel.com/products/64595/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2670-20M-Cache-2_60-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-Q... /
Greeting! 🙂

 

If you are using Win 10 then techincally you dont need to since it will work on the standard Win 10 NVMe drivers, but you should install the Samsung drivers to get the best performance since they are optimised for the drive.

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‎03-10-2017 02:26 PM

HP Recommended

I have Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate x64...  I should pray the driver to work with Sandy Bridge processors....
Thank you again, MtothaJ! 🙂
If someone has any experience with the driver... please, share it with me! 🙂

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‎03-10-2017 02:46 PM

HP Recommended
@Thurisaz wrote:

I have Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate x64...  I should pray the driver to work with Sandy Bridge processors....
Thank you again, MtothaJ! 🙂
If someone has any experience with the driver... please, share it with me! 🙂

I am using the same drivers (I have a  950 Pro) with a Sandy Bridge E5-1650 v1 and they work fine so no need to worry.

The more serious problem may be Win 7 since this does not have native NVMe support. I think that installing the drivers at the WIn 7 installation stage should do the trick ad make the drive appear as a installation destination for your operating system but this is just speculation on my part since I have not tried this myself.

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