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I do own two Z400 and six of the Z420 units.

I wanted to also CONFIRM to you all that I also tried some advice by another person on this forum in regards to the Z400 Workstation, I have the X5680 CPU in it, which is maybe the 2nd most powerful CPU it can take just under the X5690.   OK, I wanted to test out this theory of the M2 thing Samsung 950 EVO working as a boot drive, and yes it will work, when you are in Bios, U want to change the thing Boot Option thing from Raid-AHCI to change that to IDE, whatever that does just it makes the usual cheap china type conversion board, an X4 plain NVME board that U want to put it in the lowest black slot, the slot 4 it might be called down below the X16 slot before the white PCI slots, after U have done a CLONE of your original HDD, SSD, NGFF, or whatever seems to be it is the MBR type format that I used, NOT GPT, and then yes go into bios to double check that the RAID+ AHCI is changed to IDE, then go back to the BOOT ORDER tab and it then SHOULD SHOW UP THERE as an M2 drive and U shoulid see it.   It is NOT an AHCI drive at all, NO, it is yes the real deal NVME working on a GEN 2 slot since there is no gen 3 speed on the Z400 motherboard.   I am using the 256gb type, the other person was using the 512gb.   I can REPORT my fastest READ speed was doing 1711 mbps READ speed and getting a 958 mbps READ speed.   Before I was using a usual Sata 6 controller card in the top gen2 slot and using an NGFF thing on a converter board plugged into that Sata 6 type controller card, but even with THAT, I was never getting more than 406 READ and maybe 435 WRITE was the best you can get out of these Z400 units, but now yes that Samsung 950 EVO thing WILL yes now show me a little more than 2x faster write speeds and a solid 4x faster READ, this really brings the old Z400 back from the dead and still makes it a serious contender to some other newer units today, so all is not lost.   SO I did verify the idea works but I had the 256

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Thank you for posting this info.  I also have z400 with x5680 and have a spare m.2  with 256gb and an adapter but have not used it yet except to try out on HP PRO 3400.  It showed up as a drive but I was unable to boot.  I now see that IDE is required instead of AHCI-RAID.  

 

Can you run the DiskMark test and post the results? 

My results for "cached" speed are over 2gb but the real performance with 7200 rpm drive is only as shown below

 

BeemerBiker_0-1659121478327.png

 

I was thinking of using an m.2 but not booting the m.2, just using it as a disk cache with  PrimoCache. 

I have AHCI enabled as my USB3 adapter requires AHCI.to be recognized.


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I ran Crystal Disk Mark 7, and the READ was 1711 mbps and the WRITE was 958, this is considered really GOOD when you see the Z400 only has the Gen 2 speed X slots and the SPECS on it if it were Gen 3 would be a little faster on READ, like maybe 2200 and the WRITE is suppose to be around 900 mbps.   But the larger 512gb M2 drive thing, is better like maybe 2400 READ and maybe near 1500 write but again we are NOT going to see this on the GEN TWO speeds, but I have ran these experiments before and gotten like a 2200 on READ and then like 1500 on WRITE, that was using the AHCI thing gen 3 type, Samsung MZ-HPV type m2 module, so it was about as good or the same speeds of the Samsung 950 EVO m2.    But the bandwidth of that gen 2 slot when using the 4th slot down, that second lower X16 slot, the faster bandwidth of that X16 almost makes up for the gen 3 speeds almost!    I am just using a cheapo china type one-board M2 thing that has an X4 slot and it CAN use an AHCI or usual NVME either one on it, but yes UR right, not ALL these boards can do both, some won't read AHCI at all, some do, some don't.  Just luck on my end but, I also TRIED the top first slot, the X8 type or was it X4 the very TOP slot was a gen 2, but it would NOT READ to bios that slot, so yes true it HAS to be that 4th slot down, the lower X16 for sure no matter what, I also FOUND OUT this seemed to be the same too for the Z420, for some odd reason I tried the thing 4th slot down which was a gen 3 slot as X8 but THAT would not read the AHCI module at all, I had to again use that lowest slot 5 or that second X16 slot in gen 3, to get all that to work on the Z420, the speeds are incredible.   ON my Z420, I also have 3 of the version 2 mobo's and that said I put in the 12-24 core type E5-2696v2 with the latest bios, that J06-3.96 or something like that, whatever it is, and then ALSO that CPU allowed to run a faster BUS on the ram, so U can go to the PC3-14900E ram the 1866 mhz thing unless it was 1833 mhz.   So the 10 and 12 core type CPU's those are the only ones that will see the faster bus and U see that faster bus in BIOS, but U can put the same faster 14900E ram in the version 1 CPU's but in BIOS it will still ONLY read a max of 1600 mhz due to the CPU was still limiting what it can run as it's fastest bus.   That's all I know so far, so been getting some impressive results on these experiments, the only thing I did not yet do was that thing USB drive boot idea some DEFINE thing or other that can get U2 point Bios towards other boot choices and that said then it can read one of those Samsung 970 EVO PLUS and take advantage of that faster read and write.  I just looked that up, some software thing U can put on a USB thumb drive to boot to that, called DUET-REFIND.

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Something seems really wrong with CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 as it shows read speed to be 1 / 2 of the write speed. I ran it twice and it was consistently reversed from what "DiskMark" showed (156 and 96).  I think there is a bug in 7.0.0.  Read is always faster than write.

 

BeemerBiker_0-1659126682519.png

 


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On MY end here the read and write speeds are consistent or close to what the factory specs are claiming the M2 to be doing when U consider this is on gen 2 and not gen 3, so when we compensate for that, my readings are correct, I have compared these to other readings over the last 3 years of other similar tests, but the pic U showed here, I have NEVER seen a read SO FAR OFF like the pic U have here so yes on YOUR end something is wrong, OR that is a slow drive you have there then, there is such a thing, U may want to try the new released Crystal Mark 8 now as it is close to the same as version 7, try that and see if U get the same low-read speeds like this but the pic U have here, I can say that is not normal!

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That app is not consistent

 

BeemerBiker_0-1659128166414.png

Also, I cannot find the x64 bit version

and the download was for 8.17 not 8.04

something wrong at webste

 

I trust that DIskMark not that crystal app

http://www.networkdls.com/Software/View/DiskMark/

can you run DiskMark and post the image?

 

I ran it again and the average read is about 2x the write which is normal behavior for read/write hard drive

BeemerBiker_0-1659128718675.png

 

 

 

 


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Tried that m.2 card on my Z400 with PrimoCache Pro

 

Put card in the top slot (only one available)

BeemerBiker_0-1659137949635.png

 

Results after running DiskMark

 

BeemerBiker_0-1659139261436.png

 

 

Then I ran some tests:  Outlook 365 took about 10 seconds to load the first time but less than 1 second for all subsequent loads.  I could speed up the write by enabling "10 sec delayed write" but would have to put the system on a battery backup in case power went out during the 10 second delayed write.


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Sir, the m2 that you are using in the pic is some PM961 or other, it just is NOT the same Samsung 950 m2 that I have, so this said I can not verify or confirm ANY other module works at all in the Z400 for speeds but just the 950 but it was interesting to see the one U had worked, and then again I tried my 950 in that top slot and in bios boot it would just NOT show up at all on the list, it was not until I did the last 4th slot, that lower X16 slot.   All I know is I posted my results and how I did it, but I can't speculate on how or what OTHER ways or types of other M2 units WORK as you are doing, but I been getting consistent speeds for a long time using Crystal Mark and so have others all around the world, whatever is going on, on your end just I don't know if U got your system on this MBR or on GPT, there can be 100 questions here before we even get an answer, all I can say sir is I posted my results and how I did it, but then I tried some OTHER modules too, sometimes it matters to what bios upgrade version we have, everyone gets different results!   I do know I am getting a consistent 1711 mbps type READ and like 958 WRITE so I'm VERY happy about that for a gen 2 slot and the 256gb version m2 of that Samsung 950 EVO, if it were the 512gb type then I would have gotten maybe a WRITE speed like 1200 instead, it's a little better.   I been looking on Ebay and so and those 950 modules are VERY rare and hard to find, then the PRICES on them are a kick in the rear end!   I could not believe these were HARD to get, so I can see not everyone is going to get this upgrade, at the time I paid like $34.95 tops for that Samsung 950, must have been my lucky day!

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