Z420 Workstation

[mike9k]

Thinking about buying a z420 v2 Workstation but need to know if i can use 1 possibly 2 Seagate Firecuda 520 1TB Performance SSD PCIe Gen 4 NVMe 1.3 along with other spindle drives

[SDH]

I'd not even think about that with a Z420.... have worked with the Z420/Z620 version 2 workstations for years now.

I also would likely not even try that with the Z440... have worked with the Z440/Z640 since they came out.

I'd think about that with a Z4 G4...

[mike9k]

okay ill look into those i should of add that i would be upgrading the processor and memory im looking at it for a hard drive farming machine.  For the price of the g4 i could just build it from scatch tbh.  whole point of looking at the z420 was to save $$$

[SDH]

Mike, let me add a bit...

The Z420 v2 has been able to easily run a M.2 card via the Z Turbo Drive v1.  Those are hard to find, slower than you'd want, and come in smaller capacities.  I have that running and it is fine but hardly better than a large modern SATA III SSD.  And smaller. 

The Z440 I have running with the Z Turbo Drive v2 PCIe interface card (a NVMe M.2 based drive which does not run on the Z420 v2), and I have got some larger non-HP M.2 NVMe drives running on certain firmware in that HP card.  I then tried a same brand/same firmware 1TB M.2 stick in the same HP PCIe card... and fail.  You might be getting the picture... I don't have time for this dinking around unless it is a hobby.  Even when it is a hobby I don't enjoy this unpredictability.

Having said that the Z440 with a HP ZTD v2 running biggest official HP M.2 stick is nice, but that was not your question.  And  can still be a hassle.  So, with the Z440 I'm still finding it generally a best user experience to have the boot/applications drive be a nice big fast modern SATA III SSD, supplemented with a big documents SATA III HDD if needed.

If I lived in my mother's basement I might be thinking differently...