Terrible SATA speeds on Z600 (Any ideas?)

[z600fan]

Hi!

I recently picked up a Z600 workstation, and it's been great so far, with a single exception: SATA drive performance.

hwinfo64 lists the following for my OS drive (plugged into SATA0 in HDD drive bay 0):

Drive Controller: Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s @ 1.5Gb/s

Drive Model: SEAGATE ST31000340NS

Seagate states that this particular drive should be SATA 2 (3.0Gb/s), however I cannot seem to get my workstation to detect the drive as such, only in 1.5Gb/s SATA 1 mode.

I realize that this drive is relatively slow by today's standards, however these speeds are terrible:

"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 5.2.2 x64 (C) 2007-2017 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 52.136 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 56.624 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.879 MB/s [ 214.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.005 MB/s [ 245.4 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 68.791 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 54.737 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.479 MB/s [ 116.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 1.144 MB/s [ 279.3 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [C: 9.8% (91.5/930.6 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2017/08/12 19:22:12
OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 15063] (x64)"

Any ideas as to why this drive might not be running in SATA 2 (3.0Gb/s) mode? Are there any particular SATA ports I need to use other than SATA1 or SATA0 on the motherboard, or any additional drivers I may need to install? Relatively new to this workstation, so any tricks you may have would be appreciated!

My BIOS has been updated to the latest version already (late 2016 BIOS version), and I have verified that SATA Gen 2 3.0Gbs speed is selected for SATA in BIOS, as well as RAID+AHCI mode. I do realize that this is a pretty slow drive, but it's 7200RPM and should be quite a bit faster. Currently running Intel Server Express Chipset SATA RAID controller driver version 13.2.0.1022.

Thanks!

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

Get a different benchmark tool such as HD Tune 2.5.5  and make sure that test block size is 8 MB.   Surprise, surprise the results are going to be faster.

BTW---Your Z600 is not certified by HP for W10.

Read thru this Intel thread.

[z600fan]

Thanks Big_Dave. I will have a look through that thread and try another benchmark tool. I can simply feel that the drive is way too slow for being 7200RPM, so I think additional benchmarking at this point likely won't help. HWiNFO64 (reliable) also detects the drive as SATA 1 1.5Gb/s. In this case, the drive is clearly being detected in SATA 1 mode instead of SATA 2. Just curious if there are any obvious tricks (BIOS settings, certain internal SATA ports I need to use, drivers etc.) that may help. I have already verified that the drive's SATA 1 jumper is not in place as well, so the drive should be running in SATA 2 mode.

Yes, I do realize that the Z600 is not certified by HP for Windows 10, however that does not necessarily mean that there isn't a way to make it work properly. I'm sure there must be plenty of people out there running Windows 10 on their Z600s. Everything else seems to work, and I was even able to install many of the Windows 7 HP drivers, audio for instance, within Windows 10, and they are working properly. This issue did exist for me on Windows 7 as well. I have also tried reverting back to the Windows 7 11.x.x (April 2014) controller driver. Though successful, the problem remains.

Perhaps it is an issue with this particular hard drive, but I'm curious if anyone else out there has had similar issues with the Z600. I know every machine has little quirks here and there.

Thanks!

[mdklassen]

See:  http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/207963en

for a possible "firmware" update for your Seagate disk-drive.

Have you tried a different SATA cable?

You mentioned 'RAID' -- is yours a RAID-1-mirrored configuation?  Could the "other" disk-drive be slowing down the "array" ?

The motherboard's specfiications indicate that is capable of SATA 2 speeds.

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

Insufficient information is posted  --- i.e. we don't even know what you have and haven't tried. Also, we don't even know what your hardware configuration is and has it been modified.

Reread the link information that I had posted for you.  Why are you running a "server driver"?:smileysurprised:

Some PCs will just not run W10 as BIOS updates are needed and perhaps will never be developed. That may not be your case but beware.

BTW--If you are using RAID 1, only write operations would show degradation in performance compared to a non-RAID configuration.  Additionally, if the controller is in a rebuild process then the SATA drive performance will be horrible.

[z600fan]

mdklassen and Big_Dave: Thank you for the suggestions!

Before posting here, I did indeed try a few additional things which I had forgotten to mention initially. I mentioned the obvious things however (BIOS settings etc.)

mdklassen: 

Excellent suggestion on upgrading my drive firmware. This was something I had already attempted before I posted. Seagate did not have a firmware update available for my drive, at least according to their SeaTools utility. I had considered trying a different SATA cable, but I have not as of yet. I figure that HP states the Z600 supports SATA 2, so their factory mounted HP HDD bay SATA cable should support SATA 2. This appears to be a proprietary HP cable, part number 464947-001, manufactured by Molex. It would be sad if HP's stock cables, which are somewhat difficult to remove, only supported SATA 1. It's worth trying another cable to rule that out. 

Big_Dave: For testing purposes, this Seagate hard drive is the only drive installed. No other HDDs / SSDs are installed yet, and the optical drive has been removed. Regarding the "server driver", this is simply the recommended driver from HP's Z600 driver download section: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-z600-workstation/3718663

This post was primarily meant for anyone who may already own a Z600 workstation specifically. They're a bit old at this point, so I figured someone may chime in and say "Oh hey, I bumped into that problem and did _______!" lol. 

As mdklassen has suggested, I will likely try another cable. Really hope HP's stock cables aren't garbage. That would be a bummer, since they're factory mounted in the HDD bays already.

Once I figure it out, I'll post back here if I can remember to do so. Thanks!

[Big_Dave]

@z600fan

Since you bought the Z600 used, you don't know for sure even if the HD is an original. I do remember that HP used to have a QVL for HDs on some of its PC.

One last point -- You don't use server drivers with desktops.  Way, way too many issues have been posted on the internet with such attempts. Also intermixing OS drivers further complicates the situation. You may in fact get the driver to work with older hardware but it's not the type of solution that should be used even though it might work.

-------------------------

It's time for this thread to move on with or without a solution which may be nebulous at best.

[mdklassen]

> Once I figure it out, I'll post back here ...

Other "experiments":

1. connect the Seagate disk-drive as a "secondary" disk-drive in some other desktop, and see if the disk-drive is detected, and runs, as a SATA 2 device.

2. connect a spare SSD (SATA 3) as a "secondary" disk-drive in the Z600, and see how it is detected.