HP Z800 Configuring from scratch

[Mr_Spancilhill]

I have been doing exahustive reading about the Samsung 950 pro and the oprom which in theory should allow a boot/use on z800.  Reading the signs - I can't find a single user online that is using this as a boot drive? (z800 not 20, 40).

There is a lot of chat that in theory it should work, but I didn't want the disappointment, so went with the Predator. - as there is a lot of users here that express how easy it was to get going with that on z800.

Useful sites that were of great help to me.

 // for quick comparision and price history.

www.pricespy.co.uk 

//Good article on nvme and ahci versions of sm951

https://www.anandtech.com/show/9396/samsung-sm951-nvme-256gb-pcie-ssd-review

//Good answer on why a larger SSD might be a better choice vs cost of nvme drives, until cheap

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3061778/pcie-mode-bottleneck-950-pro-nvme.html

//benchmark comparison...  

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Samsung-SM951-NVMe-PCIe-M2-256GB-vs-Kingston-HyperX-Predator-AH...

//Getting 960 evo to boot on older systems... waaaay too much wasted time for me, but  if you are an enthusiast...

//might give some leads re z800 boot

https://audiocricket.com/2016/12/31/booting-samsung-sm961-on-asus-p6t-se-mainboard/

So  I now have the Hyperx and a new controller... 

SI-PEX40057 4 port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x2 Hyper Duo raid controller card marvel 88SE9230

so need to pick up ssds and  should be good to go.

One last thing I am looking for  is a dual ssd 2.5 in 5.25in bay with x2 usb ports. I see nice ones  that are 1 ssd and 3.5hd combos, hot-swapable . . but can't find a dual ssd with the usb plugs. (might as well not waste space.)

[DGroves]

i'm going to order the HP usb 3 card and the z820 I/O cable, and the next time the z800 is down for whatever reasion

currently my z800 has a dual 5.25/2.5 removable bay which also holds my two usb3.0 ports that come off my existing usb 3.0 card that i rarely use for drives nowadays so it would be nice to get rid of it and move it else where

[CharlieZ800]

If anyone wants to put a PCIe NVMe SSD into a Z800 and can't find the ones listed above, I just installed a KC1000 into my Z800 and am able to boot from it. This does require a little bit of effort but the results are in my opinion worth it. The KC1000 with PCIe card in UK is about £125, far cheaper and easier to get than any of the other options.

The KC1000 (240GB) does not run as fast as it will run in a modern system, but the Z800 is not exactly a recent product. I think Sequential read goes up to about 2.5 GBs on a new system instead of the 1.6Gbs i get below. The bottleneck is most likely PCI 2.0.

KC1000 As boot drive on Z800

The way a NVMe drive needs to be installed is using a UEFI bootloader. What this does is loads up the NVMe driver preboot so that the KC1000 is visible at boot. This is done using the Clover bootloader, which comes from the Hackintosh community. There is a very good guide on how to do this on the following web site win-raid.com Clover set up . This does require you leaving a small usb flash drive permanantly pluigged in. I used a micro USB one that sticks out about 6 mm from one of the rear USB 2 ports on my Z800.

Once you have followed the first part of the guide it will present you with a bootload option screen, you need this to load windows. After you have installed windows and then run once to test your new OS, then take a look at post 90 in the thread and it will show you how to auto boot without having to select an option form the screen. Also the set up can be streamlined and reduced from about a 180mb set up down to 4mb. The full Clover set up has everything to run a Hackintosh and clearly we dont need that. I have not done this part yet, but will probably do it next week. 

I tried lots of other methods including those in this thread but none worked with the KC1000. Really frustrating as the Clover method on win-raid.com took 15 mins in total to set up the bootloader, windows 10 set up then follows and takes the usual.  Lots of different NVMe drives have been used by other people on the forum using a wide variety of Legacy BIOS's. I havent read a post from anyone that actually failed to get their legacy BIOS to load the NVMe they had. All credit to Fernando and the guys over at win-raid.com.

This really is a very easy thing to do. UEFI running on a 9 year old archietecture........ Yeah ha....

Charlie

[Ritindra]

Hello guys, some update

As configured, everything works flawless and fast. Really satisfied with my media content projects and render speeds.

I was thinking to place in slot 7 or slot 4 a

- Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.php or

- Delock https://www.delock.de/produkte/G_89835/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en or

- HYPER M.2 X16 CARD V2 https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16-V2-Threadripper/dp/B07NQBQB6Z/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=HYPER+M.2+X16+... or

- Gigabyte/Asrock addon cards

Anyone experiences with them or will they work? Would be great

1 m2 nvme SSD as scratch disk for the media content app

1 m2 nvme SSD for unfinished projects

1 m2 nvme general storage

1 m2 nvme for finished projects

The installed sata SSD perhaps set in raid or use as backup, the HDD can be used in my NAS

What you guys think?

[DGroves]

the kingston ssd you went with is a good choice, and much cheaper than the AHCI version of the sm951 ssd line  while still being faster than a SATA based SSD

btw, i've benchmarked a z800 using a adaptec raid card (6805) in jbod/raid modes with ssd's and also used a duet/refind usb key boot loader to boot from a nvme drive (HP ex900) and also a normal sata samsung 850 pro ssd... and your Predator SSD gives a nice showing speed wise compared to the raid card and nvme boot loader methods (not as fast but it's a no hassle setup)

however for those interested, it's not that card to setup the z800 using a nvme boot loader and then using any of the cheaper nvme based ssd's if you can't find a Predator ssd for a reasonable price

check this forum using keywords "nvme z800 boot"

[Ritindra]

Thanx for your reply. What can be said about slot 7, in some manual it's said pcie 2, mine looks like it is PCI, and what can be placed in this slot?

Some say to place the predator in slot 1, what is in mine situation, and some say to place it in slot 7. If slot 7 is validated, I need to take off the profile bracket and place the card reversed. My first impression is that it does not make sense and if possible, will the card hold place without bracket?

[DGroves]

I personally would follow the HP recommendation of installing the SSD in slot 1 (primary) which is the topmost pci-e slot, or slot 4 whoever said slot 7 obviously does not have ( or seen a z800/820 motherboard) as it is indeed a PCI slot

there is a reason for HP specifying those slots cooling is one, the other is the pci-e lanes to slot one come directly from the CPU and as such are faster than the pci-e lanes that go through the motherboard chipset