The UEFI BIOS settings for NVMe SSD M.2 installation into the HP Z440 system

[ChemistX]

What settings in the UEFI BIOS (M60 v02.58) are recommended in order to install NVMe SSD M.2 Samsung 970 EVO plus into the HP Z440 system through a PCIe Gen3.0 X4 NVMe M.2 Expansion Card and use it to boot the operating system?

[erico]

Your workstation accepts SATA NAND SSD as far as I can tell from the documentation.

Specification document
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04823811.pdf

What is the installed processor?  providing that would help.

So far you have only identified your workstation as a base unit and that is generic identification. 

[ChemistX]

Hi Erico,

Thanks for your attention to my question.

My HP Z440 Workstation:

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1620 v4 @ 3.50GHz

(It will soon be replaced by E5-2670 v3 @ 2.30GHz)

DDR4 32GB (4x8GB Hynix DDR4 2400MHz)

Two PCIe3x16 and one PCIe3x8 slots are attached to CPU0 and available with CPU0.

PCIe2x4 and PCIe2x1 slots are attached to Intel C612 PCH

V-NAND SATA SSD Samsung 850 EVO connected to SATA0-ACHI

(On average 550 MB/s. It works fine)

I would like to install NVMe M.2 SSD into my Z440 system by connecting it to PCIe3x8 slot using PCIe3.0 X4 Gen3 NVMe M.2 Expansion Card.

On the net, I have seen user messages about the successful installation of NVMe M.2 SSD into HP Z440 system in a similar way. However, some of the users at the same time had problems with BIOS settings. Unfortunately, I was unable to contact them. I asked my question because I don't see any PCIe-to-NVMe mode settings in Z440 UEFI-BIOS.

I will be grateful for any advice and guidance.

Best regards,

ChemistX

[erico]

HI,

It is unfortunate that you don't have a riser adapter card and an M.2 NVMe SSD  available to see if it will boot with an EFI Bootable OS on it.

Personally I doubt that it will work after taking a look at the C612 chipset documentation.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/81759/intel-c612-chipset/specifications.html

Z4440 specifications

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04506309

[SDH]

The Z440 (and the Z640 and Z840) were engineered by HP to also use a PCIe card inserted into specific PCIe slots... that card is called a Z Turbo Drive G2 (generation 2). There are HP NVMe-controller M.2 sticks you can put in that card, but DGroves and I both here have posted on use of other source NVMe-controller M2 sticks we've used in those ZTD G2 cards.

The cards have some unique HP engineering built in to not let them work in workstations they were not designed for. That feature might also signal to the BIOS that a ZTD G2 card is being used and to unlock that capability. Not sure on that but there is surely some talking back and forth between the card and BIOS.

There is a new 2.61 BIOS out, by the way, from April 2023... I'd upgrade to that first.

I've posted quite a bit of info on these cards, as has DGroves here. There is a recent post, plus an exhaustive link on ZTD Secrets in HERE . My recall is that DGroves states that you can use about any brand NVMe-controller M.2 stick in the HP ZTD G2 card... that has a nice aluminum heatsink and is of usual excellent HP quality. I've used both HP and Lenovo NVMe sticks.

My recommendation is update your BIOS and set it to "factory default" and then do a clean install using the Z440/Z640 HP Cloud Recovery W10 installer you can find via google... that loads an older W10 version with HP's exact choice of all the drivers. That build will later get updated to the most recent W10 22H2 via Windows Update.

It is wise to only have the ZTD G2 in its proper slot (I only use slot 4 as my first choice) and no other SSD/HDD should be attached at time of the install. You'll need to set the boot order properly to boot first off the thumb drive with the Cloud Recovery Tool installer on it, install to the M.2 stick, shutdown, pull the thumb drive, cold boot into BIOS, select the M.2 stick as your boot device, boot, then upgrade to latest W10, then add in any other SSD/HDD drives as needed. Later you can do any BIOS fine tuning you need. Version 2 instructions attached below.

This is a pretty big project, and you'll notice some benefit in speed over use of a fast modern big SSD, but not a huge benefit. Nothing like going from a HDD to a SSD.

[ChemistX]

Hi, SDH

Thank you for your attention to my question.
Your answer is very helpful for me. You have confirmed the information that I was previously able to find on the net. I am very grateful to you.
But I also found information about the successful use of third-party expansion cards when upgrading HP Z4XX workstations, in particular SIIG M.2 NGFF SSD M Key NVME PCIe 3.0 x4 Card Adapter (see links below):

https://www.siig.com/m-2-ngff-ssd-pcie-card-adapter.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lNfaxjmMwM

https://www.greenpcgamers.com/hp/hp-ddr4-based-workstations/hp-z440-gaming-computer-and-other-hardwa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaTo4xlfsVA&t=11s

Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and today I ordered the following expansion card on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/266224571527

I thought it is ZTD G2 model, but apparently it's the G1, engineered for the AHCI-controller M.2 sticks.

If I understand you correctly, the G1 supports SATA-ACHI M.2 SSD only and will not work with my NVMe SSD M.2 250GB Samsung 970 EVO plus. Please confirm my conclusion as soon as possible. Maybe I can cancel the order.

Thanks again for your help.
Sincerely,

ChemistX

[SDH]

There are quite a few posts in this forum about the Z Turbo Drive (G1) and the Z Turbo Drive G2, including recently HERE . I agree it can be confusing.

The cards for all practical purposes are identical except for the presence of the nice big aluminum finned heatsink on the G2 version. The NVMe M.2 sticks tend to run hotter than the AHCI M.2 sticks. You can buy a good quality aftermarket M.2 stick cooler and add that, which would reduce or eliminate throttling of the NVMe drive due to overheating.

The benefit of the HP ZTD G2 card with its HP-engineered heatsink is that you can be sure it works and fits perfectly. You'll have to make sure an aftermarket cooler will fit on that card and have thermal pads that fit too.

[ChemistX]

Hi, SDH

Yesterday I wrote a message to the eBay seller and asked him to hold up the shipment of the goods and provide me with additional information about his HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 SSD card, as well as send me a photo of the reverse side of the card, where there are a card marking and a specification sticker. But the seller only sent me a photos (see below) and nevertheless shipped the goods without waiting for my reaction. So I'll get this card soon.

In your opinion, is it possible to identify the ZTD card model (Generation 1 or Generation 2) only from these photos and be sure that this card model is compatible with NVMe M.2 SSD? Please let me know.
In principle, the only thing that matters to me is the compatibility of this card model with my NVMe M.2 SSD Samsung 970 EVO plus  PCIe3.0 x 4 1.3 Phoenix Controller and the ability to make them work together in my HP Z440 Workstation.

Sincerely,

ChemistX

[SDH]

You have exactly what you need. That is a ZTD G2. You can use it with a NVMe-controller M.2 stick in your Z440. If, instead, you had a Z420 you could use that same ZTD G2 card but the M.2 stick would need to be one of the AHCI-controller M.2 sticks in place instead (for all practical purposes).

Your G2 card has the nice HP big heatsink, and both the original used thermal pads are presumably there also... you can see the bottom one, and those don't wear out. The M.2 card hold-down is also included... note you can faintly see the tip of the tiny steel metric screw through the last (far right) of the three holes. The other two threaded holes are empty. The hold-down screw is quite small... don't over-tighten it. Just gentle snug it to avoid "galling" of the threads. It just needs to orient the M.2 stick properly and the thermal pads and the heatsink will really hold the stick from moving. Slip the black plastic part of the hold-down onto the recess at the butt end of the M.2 stick... it will hold there by friction. There are two "wings" to the black plastic part... have those flush with the butt end of the PCB of the M.2 stick on both sides. Insert the contacts-end of the stick into its socket fully and then fold the stick down... the hold-down screw will line up with its threaded hole, and you can then screw in. Nice design.

Regarding the thermal pads... don't try to remove or clean them. They are too easy to stretch or tear, and don't need to look perfect to work well. You can buy aftermarket or even new HP ones if needed.

Those three green jumpers shown on the card on the top right are in their default positions, each shifted rightward on the 3 pins "shorting" pins 2-3. I don't change those. If you ever were to add a second ZTD you'd only need to shift one of those jumpers on that second card leftward to "short" pins 1-2 instead. That gives the second card a different address for the HP BIOS to know about. I do that to the top green jumper of the second ZTD if I'm experimenting, but I don't generally run two at once. 

Rather, using a big 2.5" form factor SATA III SSD (6Gb/s) as a documents drive is a very fast combination with a that ZTD G2 running a NVMe M.2 stick as your boot/applications drive.