Got a used HP Z620 now first task is SSD

[Calaudude]

As I understood a M2 Solution is best option to boot this rig. Can you give me advice what I should buy to get it working out of the box.

My "new" Z620 will arrive soon with its 1T outdated HDD included which I suppose should exchange first

My plan is to go the Win10 Insider way

[SDH]

Nope.... best is to use a 2.5 to 3.5 form factor converter for allowing you to place a top quality SSD in the SATA port 0 drive bay of the Z620.  That conversion and more is described in detail in this post  HERE.  The port 0 bay is the bottom one of the three in there.... 0, 1, 2 is stamped in the metal, hard to see unless you know, on the left side of each bay in your Z620.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/installing-a-SSD-in...

Unliike with the Z600 (a SATA Gen II workstation) the Z620 can utilize the added capabilities of a SATA Generation III SSD just fine, and you can read up in Anandtech.com for their current recommendations on the best SSDs as of Q3 2016  HERE.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds

The Z620 does not have a M2 slot.  You will get yourself to near perfection with one of the top SSDs noted in the article above.  If you need more there is more... the HP Z Turbo Drive that you can research on, but that is not the "best" option for a boot drive in my opinion.  Depends on how you define best.....

Make sure to update your BIOS first.... 3.90 is the latest.  You can reformat that original drive and use it in the SATA bay above your port 0 bay as your documents/storage drive.  I can send you my optimized Z620 BIOS settings for import after you have done that (you can clone in BIOS settings via "Replicated Setup") if you want.... PM me via the forum with your email address.  It is a small CPQSetup.txt file, and you can import that from within BIOS.

Regarding W10.... hopefully the Z620 came with a W7Pro64 install.  I believe you can still upgrade to W10Pro64 for free if you are disabled.  Virtually never will a used HP workstation come to you with the original drive and the Recovery partition intact/unused, but if it does for this one make sure to capture the HP Recovery media onto a thumb drive first.

[Z440Roger]

My vote goes to an internal SSD as well. 🙂

I have a Z440 with a Z Turbo and boot the computer from that for only one reason: I need all the SATA ports inside the Z440 to internal drives. If the Z440 had more internal SATA ports i would not have bought the Z Turbo to free up one SATA port.

Get the Kingston SNA-DC2/35 and place the 2.5 inch SSD drive in. The Kingston SNA-DC2/35 fits the 3.5 inch drive caddy in the Z620: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817991012

[Calaudude]

my plan is tonight I will buy a Samsung SSD 256gb M.2 SM961 with an ASUS m.2 PCI Adapter board

this looks in my eyes as the most performant solution

 It will cost one PCI slot but the SM961 has nice performance

other then that I got dual 3tb sata hdd which I could build in if I want

my normal stuff is on a 16tb raid5 on nas over gigabit

In my actual PC I have an 256 SSD from 2012 which look very outdated . I will not use it for my Z620 rig

SanDisk SSD 256GB, SATA (SDSSDP-256G-G25)

lol looks like its a long time ago I was upgrading my old rig (i7-920 non OC)

here are my actual specs from my rig when I get it from ebay

Manufacturer HP

Model Z620 Workstation / Intel C605 Chipset

Type/Service-Tag /4U Rackable Minitower

Processor 2x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2670 (20M Cache, 2.60 GHz, 8.00 GT/s Intel QPI)

Memory 96GB /(12x8GB) / (Maximum Memory Supports up to 96GB)(Total of 12 memory sockets)(1600MHz, 1333MHz and 1066MHz DIMMs are supported)

Hard drive 1TB SATA /Dell Constellation- ST31000524NS RAID_controller Integrated SATA 6.0 Gb/SATA 3.0 Gb/s

Optical drive Not included

Graphics card NVIDIA NVS 310 512MB x16 for Dual DVI

Operating Systems No Operating System Installed

Power supply 800W, 90% Efficient Power Supply

COA Windows 7 Pro

Warranty 12 Months

Condition Used/Look on original pictures

Dimensions Chassis Dimensions (H xW x D) 44.45 x 17.15 x 46.48 cm (17.5 x 6.75 x 18.3 in)

[SDH]

Let us know how things go.... be interested to hear.  I could not find the ASUS PCIe adapter.... do you have a part number?

Say, do you know if your Z620 is one of the original ones with the older motherboard type, or if it is "version 2" with the newer type of motherboard that can run the faster processors?  The easiest way to tell the difference is by its Boot Block Date, as detailed in the forum here.  That will make a big difference in processor upgrading.

Finally, I found my HP reference part numbers for the HP 2.5-to-3.5" form factor converters if you ever need those.  The HP "tool-less" one that costs an arm and a leg is 675769-001:

Versus the HP "needs-screwdriver-for-1-minute" one that is under $10.00 USD on eBay, is HP part number 654540-001 and looks like this (with same quality metal and same Foxconn SATA BlindMate interface board):

[Calaudude]

as my ordering of the Samsung 961 256G with adapter was delayed I found a better offer a 960GB SSD for just 65 bucks more which I think is the better offer although only SATA3

I guess in realworld it doesnt matter and the 960G will pay out

when I am upgrading my NAS I will have 2 spare 3TB SATA but I am unsure if I should add them to the Z620 as I dont real know what shoudl I do with that 6TB extra local space

as I get the rig tuesday I cant tell you if its "new" or not

maybe check thsese pics

http://leader112.com/media/image1000x1000/product_default/6896/Z620%20NVS310%20(3).jpg

http://leader112.com/media/image1000x1000/product_default/6896/Z620%20NVS310%20(2).jpg

http://leader112.com/media/image1000x1000/product_default/6896/Z620%20NVS310%20(3).jpg

[SDH]

Nice.... it has the riser and second processor already, so that is a significant benefit right there.  You could stage processor upgrades by taking out the second and the riser and getting your ideal one for the first socket, and buy a second later.

The Boot Block Date you'd like to see is 3/6/13 for the Version 2 Z620; the Version 1 has date of 12/28/11.  You'll want to know what exactly you have as your processor, and then you can see what your heatsinks/fans are rated for.  There is the usual "Mainstream" version and also a higher cooling capacity "Performance " one.

It will be interesting to know what processors you have in there right now, to know if there is room for significant improvement and at what cost.

FYI.... those adapters shown shift the connector end of the unit leftward so the physical layout perfectly matches that of a 3.5" hard drive once the two are put together.  That way when you put the combination in the Z620's slider drawer and slide it in the rear end meshes perfectly with the BlindMate receiver you'll see if you peer in there with a flashlight.  You can't use any converter for this purpose (but there are a good number out there that will work just fine).

[Calaudude]

I was reading this bootblock issue now alot and this is a  true letdown for hp

about my rig I asume its a returned 3yrs leasing box so it may or may nor have the 3/6/13 bootblock

about updates my cpus I am unsure if any cpu upgrade will be a significant improvement from my dual e5-2670

change hdd to a "new" ssd is in my eyes the only reasonable upgrade now as the ram is with 96gb already like maxxed

[BambiBoomZ]

Calaudude,

I've used relatively few SSD's,  but the best performance by far have been the two M.2 using the Samsung SM951 256GB AHCI. 

z420:  The z420 (Xeon E5-1660 v2 .32GB / Quadro K4200) that I use for 3D modeling has an SM951 mounted on a Lycom DT-120 M.2 to PCIe adapter card in PCIe Slot 1 and includes the OS /Programs, and active projects.  That system previously used an Intel 730 480GB.  The Intel 730 is quite fast but to summarize using Passmark Disk results in the z420: Intel 730 = 4760, and Samsung SM951 AHCI = 11591.  To put his into further context,  the Intel 730 cost $290 or $.61 /GB- remember it's 480GB instead of 256GB. and the SM951 was $157 + the adapter card at $22 which is about $.70 /GB.  In a rough cost/ performance: the Intel 730 cost $.15 per Passmark Disk point and the SM951 cost about $.015 per point.

z620:  Recently, I bought a low specification z620 (E5-1620 Firepro / 8GB / V5900)and upgraded. This system arrived with three mech'l HD's and the 2011 Seagate 750GB used as the boot drive had a Passmark score of 574.  Having had very good results with the SM951 in the z420, I looked into one for the z620.  It turned out that the HP Z Turbo Drive used an SM951, but having better PCIe adapter card circuitry and better cooling- a finned Al heatsink, achieves better performance from the SM951.

The z620 receives my "most improved drive performance" as the Passmark score changed from 574 to 13426 - and which equals $.01 /pt. another improvement was demonstrated in the Passmark system rating which began as 2468 and with the CPU and GPU upgrades achieved 2449  and the Disk dropped to 529.  After discovering the 8GB RAM modules should be registered instead of unbuffered (the CPU mark changed from 19671 to 22625) and adding the Z Turbo Drive, the system rating on Passmark of 5675- the highest for a z620.

Although there are two results for a z620 with a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe version  (results = 12590 and 10085), the other results using M.2 are using AHCI versions.

I should mention here that in my uses and programs, the M.2 speed is so good that all the other components excpet the RAM, including the E5-2690 and E5-1660 v2 are bottlenecks to it's.  File transfers are astounding - the GB's fly by- and I would except progrmas tihe high disk /RAM swapping such as video editing will benefit, but starting, opening, and saving seems quite similar.  However, what I think of of as the disk core points  to cost is extremely favorable and prices have dropped enough that one may as well have the fastest. And, as another poster mentioned, using a PCIe drive frees one of the rare SATAIII connectors- another advantage.

In summary, the Samsung SM951 is an excellent performer at a reasonable cost and given the better circuitry and cooling, consider an HP Z Turbo Drive AHCI version of the appropriate size.

Be certain to update the BIOS to the current 3.90 so the z620 will see the drive as a boot drive. Also, if you use a PCIe boot drive, it can be mounted in only two of PCIe slots which are called 3 and 4.

Cheers,

BambiBoomZ

Analysis / Simulation / CPU Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Seagate ES.3 1TB  / 800W > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >  HP 2711x  (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16
[Cinebench R15:  OpenGL= 115.78 fps / CPU = 2199 cb / Single core 131 cb / MP Ratio 16.84x

[Calaudude]

Thanks for you info Bambi,

it seems you give me strong indication to go the M2 + PCI Adapter way