Installing swappable SSD system disk on Z440

[R_Sargeant]

Hi all,

We have a requirement to build some lab machines that have 64GB of ECC memory. We had previous good experience with Z400 so are considering Z440.

We need to configure these machines so that the system disk (SSD) can be cold-swapped by using a 3rd party disk caddy, connected by a SATA6 cable to the mainboard. Obviously the system should be powered down (cold swap) when we do this.

I am presuming that the factory-fitted disks are in fact connected internally with SATA6 cables so there should be no problems doing this?

Does anyone have any comments, good or bad on our idea?

RS

[DGroves]

what you propose can be done without major problems, the only thing i would stress is to spend the money and only buy a quality removable drive cage.

drive cages are available as a shell which encloses the HD and as trayless models.  the importand spec for both types is the number of cycles of connect/disconnects the  enclosures rated for,....... cheap units will fail in a short time or start to have issues making a good contact between the drives contacts and the enclosures socket

i recomend you consider products from supermicro, they are not cheap but are server quality items that will last years

most of the single trayless models i have seen are consumer oriented and of cheap build quality

[BambiBoomZ]

R_Sargent,

There are a number of alternatives to the configuration and  components possible.

1. If "system disk" refers to the C: drive and the function is to use alternative operating systems, consider configuration of multiple VMs on a 500GB internal M.2 NVMe drive.  Each VM  can have a different OS, software, peripherals, and hardware configuration. This will have the fastest configuration switching and the highest performance. Use appropriate thermal solutions. One drive is configured and then cloned, so every system can have equal capabilities at all times, although varying erpipherals could affect it. Especially if there are multiple systems with the identical drives, there may be some scope for running them in parallel computing. Folding any proteins? This also saves the effort of having to separately configure every drive.

      _A: Consider a caching drive.  In  an HP z620  ( E5-1680 v2 /64GB/ Quadro P2000), I use an HP Z Turbo Drive 256GB M.2 for OS /Programs fed by a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB caching drive and this has very low latency. Since access is so fast, that drive is also the project write-back drive and when complete- storage is HGST 7K6000 4TB. The HP Z Turbo Drive is desirable in that the thermal solution is excellent-a  large cast heatsink. Performance is very good and this drive, while AHCI, matches the average Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe.

If you are considering a VM configuration, allow allowing two cores per VM. That might require 10 cores of more if you have five or six VMs.  The level of threading of each program is important in choosing the processor. If the programs also require the highest possible single-thread performance, meaning the processor needs both high core count with a high turbo speed, the processors will be more costly. If there is a need for very strong single-thread performance, then it may be desirable to have different levels of system- some with 10-14 cores at medium clock speeds for VM and some with very fast 6 ot 8 core. The E5-1650 v4 6C@3.6 /4.0GHz has a onr of the higher single-thread ratings for Xeon E5.  Some simulation software is not highly threaded.

2. If the disk is running the OS, and it's desirable that each iteration of the OS is on a separate drive, e.g. to be able to move it from system to system the system will need to be halted. In that example, the most conventient hardware solution is mounting a hot swap drive device in the spare 5.25" front panel bay.  This is anodyne to a server hot swap bay. The connection would be to the internal SATA III port 0 on the motherboard. The connection port order does not affect performance as long as it's the proper SATA (or SAS) port, only the order in drive configuration displays. Having up to four internal drives and two external drives, each with multiple partitions, makes a display of each disk, and partition with total and used capacity very helpful. (EaseUS Partition Master Technician)

3. If the drive is data, the hot swap is the thing to use and  can be changed without shutting down the system. The drive can be either 2.5" SSD or large capacity 3.5" SAS if the system has SAS ports. However, in this kind of system, a RAID 1 (=2 drives) or 50 (= 6 drives) may be desirable.

Interesting. May I ask what kind of projects you're doing? -Analytical, compute, simulation?

BambiBoomZ

[SDH]

I used to think that the boot drive needed to be only on SATA port 0.... not so.  Have found that with the HP workstations the boot drive can be a Z-Turbo drive on the PCIe bus, or also one of several SATA SSDs attached to the SATA bus ports 0,1, 2 for example.  I attach the optical drive into the port just after the last SSD.  The boot drive can be changed pretty quickly in BIOS but my advice is to only do that from a cold boot, not a restart.

The problem is that one needs to be quite disciplined to avoid cross "contamination" potential from one drive to another.  If our users would only switch drives from a cold boot rather than a restart then things might be better, but even I have made this mistake and corrupted my OS build as a result.

There was a wonderful drive switch from Canada, out of production, that would not switch boot drives except from a cold boot.  Those are great, but no longer available..... Idex.

My favorite now is a drive carrier/receiver from Icy Dock:  https://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=162   ... the MB991SK-B.  The user just shuts down and physically swaps the SSD (in its carrier), and then a cold boot.  This works great.  This receiver has a single standard SATA power port, and a single SATA data port.  I attach that data port via a quality SATA cable to motherboard SATA port 0.  The receiver is a 3.5" form factor so it can be added into a spare 5.25" bay with the nice HP 5.25 to 3.5 bay converters available..... I can get you part numbers if you need.  Same COA serial number is used for all boot drives.

Icy Dock has a bunch of variants.... this particular one is the one I like the best, for simplicity.  Latching cables work with it fine.  I generally don't use the lock but it can be handy for drive security if needed.

I am working on building up a Z620 v2 project and will be using one of these receivers and two SSD carriers for a test build.  For the Z620 I plan on creating an interface inside the SATA port 0 internal drive bay to receive a combined SATA power/data cable from the Icy Dock down into that adapter, which then can use the built-in HP BlindMate power/data pathways from the rear of the internal drive bay out to the motherboard.   Should be a very clean install.

For the Z400/Z420/Z440 the path for SATA data is simple.... just down from the Icy Dock receiver to the motherboard port 0 via standard SATA high quality data cable.

We have some programs that use different voice recognition software that can't coexist on the same boot drive.  The conversion from one boot drive to another takes a little over one minute this way, from starting shutdown to W7Pro64 or W10Pro64 fully booted.  No need to tap into BIOS each time this way to change boot drives, and for less experienced users this is a safe way to go.  Luckily we use one of the two boot drives significantly more than the other, so may go days on just the one.

Pic available when a moderator releases it:

[SDH]

I'll post the HP AS P/N of the 5.25" to 3.5" bay adapter and a few more pics later.... here are some scans from the box for the Icy Dock receiver (which includes one carrier) and also the box from buying a spare carrier for this receiver so I can have two boot SSDs.

And a scan from the top of the HP 5.25 to 3.5 bay adapter, and one from the front of that with the receiver/carrier in place.  These pics can only be seen after a moderator releases them, usually pretty soon.

[DGroves]

SDH, are you aware that you can make a hardware boot drive selector switch by simply getting a 2/3/4 position rotary switch  and placing this on the  sata drive power line it is possible to get switches that when they receive power the selector can not be moved

or buy a premade one from amazon

https://www.amazon.com/device-switch-channel-selector-Module/dp/B01MAX56SA

a make your own

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/82086-build-your-own-sata-hard-drive-switch

[SDH]

DGroves,

Thanks for that.... quality varies, and the Canadian product I mentioned was A+, with access from front of case, and bullet proof.  I'll post the next steps for this Z620 build... have a male to female SATA Gen3 combined data/power cable coming that will allow me to feed from this device down to an adapter in the SATA port 0 drive bay, and from there to the motherboard via the built-in Foxconn BlindMate connectors used in the rear of the drive bays for the Z620.

The coming pics will make sense... pro build quality, clean inside, waiting for the final parts.  The pics below show my HP 5.25 bay to external 3.5" form factor adapter, which are pretty hard to find by themselves, but there are many other options.  One screw on the feft side would have been enough, but I drilled for a right side screw also and used a wide fender washer (#10, stainless, about 5/8" diameter) to distribute the forces of each screw head.  The Icy Dock receiver takes M3 screws.... I used two HP black star drive ones, which have the serrated bearing surface so they won't back out with use.

The same concept will work perfectly for the Z400/Z420/Z440.... they all accept these adapters, and they don't have any of the BlindMate connectors to deal with.  Here are the pics, which a moderator needs to release to see them, shortly:

[SDH]

Below are some

The info here is for the more recent HP workstations that use the drive bays and drive drawers that allow you to mesh a drive with the BlindMate connector built into the very rear of the bay.  That is a female receiver connector, and the SATA data/power connectors on the rear of SATA drives are of the male type.  For the Z400/Z420/Z440 workstations you don't need this type of machination..... but it is instructive and creates a very clean install for the BlindMate workstations.

final tips and pictures on how to do this with a Z600/Z620 which use the "BlindMate" receiver at the back end of their 3 drive bays.  Those are centered in the 3.5" form factor bays to one side like the SATA power/data male ends of every 3.5" drive.  I've posted on a very nice HP 3.5"-to-2.5" form factor adapter that can be loaded into the plastic drawers that slide into the drive bays, and these adapters properly shift the SATA connectors to the same side.  Foxconn makes these for HP and they are easily found on eBay for reasonable cost by searching for  654540-002, or -001.  Here is a picture of one of those:

The special cable, shown at the top, that needs to be obtained is a 22 pin SATA data/power extension, which allows plugging it into the rear end of the Icy Dock drive receiver and routing that down to the adapter above so the data can thereafter communicate to the Icy Dock device from the BlindMate connector built into the rear of the drive bay.  This is the best quality one I have found, and there are added images showing how I secured it to the adapter and used spiral wrap to encase the power/data parts into a nice clean path directed upwards from drive bay 0.  This length, 1/2 meter, was perfect in the Z620 for this project.  These are high quality shielded name brand cables from an excellent company.

[SDH]

The cable from the adapter was routed out the left side of the drive bay, and up to the Icy Dock receiver.  It does not impinge on the adjacent optical drive SATA cable or the combined black plastic memory fans mount.  There is enough slack to easily remove the devices and cables if needed.  The Icy Dock drive activity light is low level and a light green, as shown.  As many boot drives can be used as needed, via the inexpensive carriers shown:

[R_Sargeant]

Great! So many helpful replies! I´ll work through them all and I´m sure that will result in a satisfactory result.

The VM solution sounds great too, but I really want each consultant here to have their own pohysical disk that they can place in their desk drawers when finished. Bitter experience shows me that any solution that involves several "clever" consultants sharing any disk eventually gets screwed up. Seperate disks means if someone screwes up their disk, only they are affected.

Thanks again all!

RS