The truth about z620/z820 NVMe SSD boot

[DGroves]

Pm me on this as i don't want to get further involved in this publicly as it's a pointless exercise and i'll be happy to share my results with nvme ssd's on the z820

[NeilGilb]

EVO Pro drives have their own firmware and can be used as UEFI boot drives regardless of BIOS version. I used a 2nd hand EVO Pro 950 mounted on a cheap adaptor in slot 1 and boot from cold to Windows 10 logon in under 30 secs - most of this time is the HP BIOS sorting itself out.

Note an EVO plus will not work as I found out after buying a 970 EVO Plus for the job, but they can be used as an additional fast drives in another slot.

[SDH]

Why did you choose the uppermost slot 1 for your M.2 to PCIe interface card?  From the technical and service manual for the Z420/Z620 that is a PCIe2 slot, rather than PCIe3.  Assuming you have a single video card (in slot 2, PCIe3 x16) you may have two empty PCIe3 slots available to you:

Slot 4 (PCIe3 x8)

Slot 5 (the second "video" card slot, PCIe3 x16)

Do you know the brand/model number of your interface card?

Thanks much....

[NeilGilb]

Sorry I wasn't giving enough info, I have a Z820 and slot 1 is PCIe3 x 8 (4). Correct I have a K5200 video card in slot 2 (and covering 3). I'm not sure if I read somewhere the boot drive needed to be in slot 1, it was a 18 months ago ago I did it. There is a useful document on HP site about installing Win 7 on UEFI for Z420, 620, 820 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03465686

I know I referred to this as Win 10 was no different - hope it helps

[DGroves]

as far as i am aware there is no samsung Evo 950 pro

there is the samsung m.2 950 pro, which was unique in that it did have the necessary nvme boot code in it's firmware, as such it can boot on older legacy systems that lack nvme boot code in their bios and also this drive is no longer made by samsung and can usually only be found used

there is also a samsung EVO 970 nvme drive, this ssd does not have the nvme boot code and will only boot in newer systems that have bios support for nvme (no 620/820 boot support) this drive is currently available

[Mr_Raven]

Well, all SSDs have firmware but the Samsung SSD 950 Pro is special as it appears (according to Samsungs documentation) to have a CSM with an UEFI compatible bootloader in its firmware which makes the device show up as boot device in any UEFI capable system. Which is great as it doesn't rely on NVMe support in the BIOS.

The EVOs all lack this as these are (more or less because Samsung relies on a proprietary NVMe driver) regular NVMe drives which require NVMe support in the system's firmware to boot.

So it's certainly great that the SSD 950 Pro works but it's not really relevant for this topic, which is that the z620/z820 now have true NVMe boot support (and the SSD 950 Pro would work in the z620/820 even if that wasn't the case due to its CSM).

Considering that the SSD 950 Pro was made with small capacities (256GB and 512GB) only and is comparatively slow (only 2.5GB/s read and 1.5GB/s write), if it was for upgrading an existing workstation today I'd rather get a more modern NVMe drive instead.

[Mr_Raven]

“there is also a samsung EVO 970 nvme drive, this ssd does not have the nvme boot code and will only boot in newer systems that have bios support for nvme (no 620/820 boot support) this drive is currently available”

The EVO 970 doesn’t work because none of the EVOs seem to be fully NVMe 1.1 compliant. As stated in the original post other NVMe drives boot just fine in z620/z820.

[41C]

Most of the drives mentioned at the start of this post, such as the Intel P3700 and its contemporaries were Enterprise class drives (with high endurance ratings) launched at a time when NVMe was not fully established or widespread. Hence, like the Samsung 950 Pro and Intel 750, they contain Boot Option ROMs (OROMs), which provide the necessary NVMe driver for the BIOS.

It may well be that the most recent BIOS versions for the Zx20 machines now have the NVMe support built-in, but if the evidence is based only those older enterprise drives, it may be just that they work anyway because of their OROMs

[DGroves]

and again i will state, the intel 750 and the 9000/9100 ssd's are nvme and DO NOT HAVE ANY BOOT CODE (oprom) for booting in legacy systems that lack the nvme bios boot code

in the consumer area only the samsung 950 pro contained the necessary OPROM code in it's firmware along with the lower performing kingston predator ssd works on most legacy systems (non UEFI) and for the z620/z820's the apple SSUAX/SSUBX ssd's with the appropriate apple pinout m.2 style  adapter will also work

in the enterprise/data center space i've only seen  the seagate nytro warpdrive, and the OCZ RevoDrive x3 (both sandforce based) having the necessary OPROM code for booting the ssd

remember most enterprise/data center ssd's are non booting due to their intended usage roles

i own the drive models listed above (and quite a few more models) and also own z820's and service z840 systems for a living

HP cannot modify the Bios's of the z820 workstations unless they recertify these changes which is not going to happen on systems that are no longer under any sort of warranty or extended maintenance

people need to stop posting random guesses and poorly translated web posting that are assumed to be proof of booting a nvme ssd on the z620/z820 or earlier models

[DGroves]

your statement below is somewhat incorrect

Samsung SSD 950 Pro is special as it appears (according to Samsungs documentation) to have a CSM with an UEFI compatible bootloader in its firmware which makes the device show up as boot device in any UEFI capable system. Which is great as it doesn't rely on NVMe support in the BIOS.

the 950 pro IS A NVME BASED SSD, and it's firmware includes the necessary  NVME "OPROM" which will load the required nvme driver on just about any  computer that has a PCI-E x4 slot available ,......the computer does not have to be a UEFI based system, the 950 pro will boot from legacy (non uefi) bios computers as well as UEFI enabled systems

and this statement:

but it's not really relevant for this topic, which is that the z620/z820 now have true NVMe boot support (and the SSD 950 Pro would work in the z620/820 even if that wasn't the case due to its CSM).

again,.......the z620/z820 systems do not, will not, and can not be modified to support nvme through the workstations BIOS

to boot from a nvme ssd on these models requires one of the few ssd's that contain the required nvme oprom code in the ssd's firmware or by using a software boot loader like the clover/refind-duet nvme boot loaders

your statement:

Samsung relies on a proprietary NVMe driver) regular NVMe drives which require NVMe support in the system's firmware to boot.

samsung ssd's (and all current consumer ssd's) do not require a proprietary NVMe driver, they will happily  use the generic microsoft ssd driver that is part of windows 8.0 and above ,,,,,,, a venders ssd driver mav give a small speed increase or allow more features of a vendor's ssd to be made available to the installed OS

last the 950 pro is still one of the fastest ssd's out there, it's specs still match or exceed most of the current nvme ssd's that are available today as it's MLC based nand is by nature faster than TLC/QLC nand and unlike newer ssd's it will maintain its rated speed as it does not use a pseudo slc cach that all tlc/qlc ssd's use and if filled causes these ssd's to have xfer rates that are not much faster than a mechanical HD