HP 742006-002 with MZVLB1T0HALR-000D1 Works or not Works with a Z440 Workstation ?

[ggallien]

Hi everyone, 

I've got a HP Z turbo drive M.2 SSD Pcie x4 HP 742006-002 and I'd like to upgrade it with MZVLB1T0HALR-000D1. 
Do you have any advice or spec about this Pcie card ? 
Do you have any experience about such upgrade ? 

Thanks for your next answer and for help me out .. 
Georges. 

[SDH]

1. There are some pretty strong indications that the NVMe M.2 SSD you bought is a Dell part:

Dell part...

2. The PCIe card you bought is a ZTD G1, not a G2. The generation 2 cards have a very nice HP aluminum heatsink included, and that is because the NVMe-controller M.2 SSDs run faster/hotter than the earlier AHCI-controller M.2 SSDs used by HP in the G1 cards. That's OK... there are now quite a few nice aftermarket M.2 passive coolers you can do research on and buy. The G1 vs G2 cards are pretty much identical otherwise... it is the M.2 stick present that really makes the difference. The AHCI-controller M.2 sticks will work well in both the ZX20 and ZX40 generation workstations, but the NVMe-controller M.2 sticks will only work in the ZX40 ones.

3. There are a lot of very detailed posts here in the forum on these ZTD cards for you to find and read, and their quirks. For example, look HERE .

4. I've bought Lenovo M.2 sticks like this one and they worked fine in our Z440/Z640 workstations. Be aware that there is more fiddling with the ZTD cards than with a regular 2.5" form factor SSD. Yes, the NVMe ones are faster. No, the amount of time I've spent fiddling with them has not resulted in overall time gained. It is the challenge, not a net time saving, that drives me to keep plugging away with this project. Certainly not worth it if you're just expecting plug and play.

5. You can update the firmware of the M.2 sticks if you have an updater that is matched to the brand burned into the firmware on the stick. I've noticed many HP sticks have a H in their firmware number, many Lenovo ones have a L, and this Dell one has a D. If you can find a Dell updater I'd use that. The Lenovo updater kit seems to be the best (it was created to service their laptops) but it only works for Lenovo sticks... it probes the stick and has a large included database that it searches for the latest firmware update from. Lenovo updates that kit fairly frequently, and it works quite well on Lenovo sticks. The one downside is that it requires battery backup of the device it is being run on. I initially thought that meant I could use it only on a laptop (I used a HP laptop that booted off a 2.5" SSD and had my Lenovo stick in its built in M.2 port). However, it turns out that at least with Windows 10 and with an APC UPS attached by USB cable to one of our Z440 workstations the OS sees that as a true battery backup and the program will proceed to upgrade a Lenovo M.2 stick in the ZTD G2 PCIe card that also is installed. You don't even need to boot from that card for this to work.

6. My HP and Lenovo M.2 AHCI or NVMe sticks in ZTD G1 or G2 cards in our ZX40 workstations run under W10 as boot drives. I have not been able to upgrade those Z440 W10 builds to W11. I can upgrade the same workstations to W11 if they are booting off a 2.5" form factor SSD using my "hybrid" upgrade technique.  However, if the boot drive is a M.2 stick the W10-to-W11 upgrade proceeds to the last instant, and then rolls back to the original W10 build automatically. That usually means some essential driver is missing, and HP is not supporting the Z440 for W11. No hard feelings here...

7. HP made a proprietary M.2 stick hold-down for these ZTD cards and they are almost impossible to find if lost. They are tiny, finely milled from brass/plastic, and the threads are smaller than usual. I posted on building one but it is a huge hassle. Just make sure you have one and beware that they are easy to drop. Then they disappear into the void almost every time. Work over a towel and attach that hold-down to the rear of the stick first... it is a firm fit and will slide on and stay. Then insert other end into the socket, fold the stick down, and tighten the tiny screw in place... just snug, not too tight (the threads can get galled... I've done all the mistakes). This way you won't be fumbling with the hold-down and the springy stick in its socket simultaneously. For anyone buying one of these cards off eBay many don't have that hold-down and some of the pics on the ads are not of what you'll be sent. Thus, be very clear with the seller you MUST have that hold-down, and that you'll need a refund if it is not included. Here's a pic:

[ggallien]

Hi SDH, 

Thanks a lot four your wonderful explaination about Z Turbo Drive.
Badly 512Gb for G1 cards are out of stock. 
I think to get directly a g2 card with 512 in nvme form factor. 
Do you have any advice about such idea ? 
Beside that, I will clone my G1 256 ahci card to this new one to avoid a full reinstallation. 
Thanks 
Georges.

[SDH · Accepted solution]

I'd just use the 1TB Dell NVMe one you have. There are ways to pretty easily expand the active area of a large drive even if your source drive you've cloned from is smaller... say 256GB. You can do some probing of these Samsung OEM M.2 drives with the Samsung Magician software. By the way, these sticks have a very long life with normal usage.

You don't initially need to have a heat sink for the NVMe drive... just don't push it until you get a good add-on aftermarket one. Or, better, go ahead and buy a real HP ZTD G2. Ideally you want one with the thermal pads in place. With good searching you can find those used for a reasonable price.

The firmware upgrades to these sticks come from Samsung, but the firmware encoded onto the stick seems to have a small bit identifying it for the OEM source. Lenovo just seems to stay up on the upgrades better. I'd not assume the Dell one is not one to use.

Good luck on your project!

[ggallien]

Thanks a lot and let it go for this one.. 
Thanks 

Georges.

[SDH]

Excellent choice!

[ggallien]

Hi, 

Once more time : thanks a lot for all your explainations, tips and support.
Everything is in place with 1Tb of space on a NVME SSD.
Cloning works great and the Windows 10 recovery process works magically. 

My computer stops alerting me about free space left and gain speed. 
You are granted Level 10 and it is deserved ! 
Georges.