Will this Z Turbo Drive boot a Z230 workstation

[ravdinve]

Hello!

I'm trying to find an appropriate Z Turbo Drive for my Z230 workstation, can someone tell me if that particular one act as bootable drive on my workstation:

[DGroves]

the z230 does not support NVME Booting, as such you will need to use a SATA to "AHCI" based ssd for booting 

the HP m.2 card you reference was available with  either a AHCI based ssd or a nvme based ssd

https://phisonblog.com/ahci-vs-nvme-the-future-of-ssds-2/

the OEM samsung sm951 ssd was available in both nvme and AHCI variants with the difference being the model name,  look for MZHPVxxx  labeled ones as the "HP" signifies it's AHCI

you can also use any SATA based SSD connected to the boards onboard sata ports

[ravdinve]

This SSD is labeled as MZHPU, do u think this one is AHCI?

[DGroves]

the samsung MZ-HPUxxx/xp941 is a older slower AHCI based drive and is not much faster than a SATA based  ssd such as the evo 840 due to it only using a x2 interface (but yes it will boot on the HP card or any other pci-e m.2 card  (MZ-HPU128T/004)

if you want the speed of a nvme based drive, then you need the later SM951xxx AHCI model which uses x4 pci-e lanes

SM951 512GB M.2 AHCI SSD, MZHPV512HDGL OEM

SM951 256GB M.2 AHCI SSD, MZHPV256HDGL OEM

my personal recommendation is skip the overpriced AHCI SSD's and stay with the high performance sata ssd models like the samsung 850 pro

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-PRO-2-5-Inch-MZ-7KE256BW/dp/B00LMXBOP4?th=1

[ravdinve]

I found that SSD on eBay. Is it the right one? Thanks in advance! 

[SDH]

The answer is yes.

DGroves and I have both done speed testing on these faster better second generation SM951 M.2 AHCI-controller SSDs which HP released for the Z Turbo Drive (G1) and they turn out to be almost as fast as the more modern PCIe3 M.2 NVMe-controller SSDs that became supported in the ZX40 workstations, and later. Yes, that is one of them and it will work fine in either the original ZTD or the next version, the ZTD G2. I assume that M.2 stick would be used. These have a very generous MTBF, documented in the Samsung literature, and I've bought multiple used ones without issue.

Some added pictures from eBay are below, and note that Lenovo used some of the same (which work fine also in the HP Z Turbo Drives G1 or G2):

256 GB HP version256 GB Lenovo version512 GB HP version

I highlighted in red some added items. One is the firmware version. The latest HP ever released for these has 24 in its alphanumeric. Lenovo's latest has 25 in it. Either seems to work just as well for me in my testing. There also is the 4 digit date of manufacture item... 1552 means made in the 52nd week of 2015.

These SM951 versions are faster than a SATA SSD but the hassle factor is something to take into account. As DGroves notes, with good reason, a good modern SATA SSD is pretty much plug and play if you have basic knowledge. I'm quite experienced and yet some of the unexplained hassles with properly installing these M.2 drives remain for me. I do it as a challenge and have had DGroves' help too.

The SM951 runs faster and hotter than the original XP941 that HP released in the original ZTDs. That M.2 stick was hobbled by having its AHCI-controller be only PCIe2 bandwidth. The SM951 can run at almost double that, at PCIe3 bandwidth instead. Both of the ZTD versions can run PCIe3 and PCIe4 bandwidth in my testing. I prefer to run my SM951, both 256 and 512GB versions, in ZTD G2 cards with their nice big surface area aluminum heatsink.

Make sure to plug your ZTD PCIe card into the HP-recommended slot on your workstation's motherboard. HP provides that info if you look for it, from the past. If you happen to already have a ZTD G1 you can easily add on an aftermarket heatsink or even go on eBay and find a used HP M.2 heatsink too. A good one I use to preserve the ZTD single slot width form factor is from HP... 919952-001. About 10.00 USD from China where they're made by Foxconn.

[DGroves]

SDH, as i recall the earlier xp941 ssd was the hotter one as opposed to the AHCI 951 version

for the nvme variant i have no idea, but either way the AHCI/NVME m.2 based ssd's in general do need cooling for the controller chip as this is where all of the heat is generated the ram on the m.2 does not really require cooling so where possible i just heatsink the controller chip instead of the entire m.2 ssd

note ver 4/5 gen ssd's absolutely require active cooling in systems that support the newer pci-e bus speeds

[ravdinve]

Thanks everyone for helping finding an appropriate drive, I went out with ordering an HP SM951 AHCI and now looking for a good deal on an adapter card.

[DGroves]

the HP ssd card is a quality one and can be made to work on any system by removing the "Q1" transistor from the card

search the forum for older posts by sdh and i on this subject