HP Z420 SSD SAMSONG 960 PRO NVME Supports?

[MtothaJ]

If anybody is looking for a m.2 to PCIe adapter for their m.2 sized SSD, yesterday I installed the following one into the Z420:

The card works fine and the fan provides some airflow over the disk without being noisy. Additionally the back of the card is cut out to help with cooling and the card has a green activity LED. One thing to note is that IMO with the fan the card is just ever so slightly slightly thicker than the standard 1 PCI / PCIe slot size, so plugging in a card in the next slot depending on its size could be chalenging and may potentially block off airflow for the fan.

One thing I did and which I would recommend is to shorten the length of the fan wire - basically I desoldered the two wires on the fan end, shortened the cable length by about 90%  and soldered the two wires back to the fan (easy access under sticker on the back of the fan), so now there is no unsighty wires dangling about and getting in the way.

These are available for c.a. 10 USD on Ali or ebay in case anybody is interested.

[Højmark]

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@MtothaJ wrote:

If anybody is looking for a m.2 to PCIe adapter for their m.2 sized SSD, yesterday I installed the following one into the Z420:

The card works fine and the fan provides some airflow over the disk without being noisy. Additionally the back of the card is cut out to help with cooling and the card has a green activity LED. One thing to note is that IMO with the fan the card is just ever so slightly slightly thicker than the standard 1 PCI / PCIe slot size, so plugging in a card in the next slot depending on its size could be chalenging and may potentially block off airflow for the fan.

One thing I did and which I would recommend is to shorten the length of the fan wire - basically I desoldered the two wires on the fan end, shortened the cable length by about 90%  and soldered the two wires back to the fan (easy access under sticker on the back of the fan), so now there is no unsighty wires dangling about and getting in the way.

These are available for c.a. 10 USD on Ali or ebay in case anybody is interested.

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It might be a bit tight next to the graphic card. Im sure I wouldnt have space for it. Maybe its possible to mount the fan on the other side of the board? What about the passive cooled KryoM.2 from Aqua Computer, how do you like that?

[MtothaJ]

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@Højmark wrote:

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It might be a bit tight next to the graphic card. Im sure I wouldnt have space for it. Maybe its possible to mount the fan on the other side of the board? What about the passive cooled KryoM.2 from Aqua Computer, how do you like that?

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Just to clarify, if you have a 2 slot graphics card in slot 2, the card will fit fine in slot 4 or 5.

The problem could be if you were using a large card with a backplate in slot 5, with the adapter card in slot 4 as there is a high likelyhood that the fan would be touching the card in slot 5. There problem really pertains to the next slot down, not up.

The  KryoM.2 looks great, very OEM like, quality is also no doubt better than these cheap Chineese adapter cards (which however still do the job).

[Bortoloso]

Hello everyone! I have a 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD, and the Asus adapter Hyper M.2 X4 MINI. I cloned my current SSD WIN10 I see and I access to the 960 but if I put it as a boot disk (by disconnecting the other), the system will not start. Where am I wrong?

[BambiBoomZ]

Bartoloso,

Conifuring an HP z420 to use an NVMe drive as a boot drive is highly technical, involving a complex procesure to edit the system BIOS by adding an NVMe module. I considered this.  thinking of adding a 960 Evo, but the sequence is too advanced and risky for me. On Passmark Performance Test baselines, there are no 960's -Pro or Evo listed for z420's though there are some SM951 NVMme's

However, there is an easy method to add NVMe: use a Samsung 950 Pro which includes a "Leagacy BIOS" that adds the NVMe module and NVMe driver.  This is all set up by Samsung and apparently not difficult. The 950 performance is extremely good as well.

I've been using M2. drives (Samsung SM951 AHCI) in a z420 and z620 for several months and have not noticed any real benefit over fast SATA SSD's.  Starting the system is about five- eight seconds faster.  The problem is the M.2 drives benchmark extremely well,  but are slowed by other components and a lot of small files. When backing up to a mech'l storage drive, it has to run at the write speed of that drive. < The weakest link in a chain effect,...

Cheers,

BambiBoom

[Bortoloso]

Okay, where can I find this guide? I manderesti some of your bios screen?

[BambiBoomZ]

Bartoloso,

If you mean the mthod to add the NVMe BIOS module, the best one that I found is:

[Tutorial]How to add NVMe support on any AMI UEFI BIOS with an Intel Chipset

And this one seem complete, but more difficult to follow:

#1 | [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS

Both of these seem quite technical.  Using a Samsung 950 Pro with the "Legacy  BIOS" included seems much easier.

Let us know what happens if you try it.

Cheers,

BambiBoomZ

[MtothaJ]

 The second link provided by BambiBoomZ is IMHO the best guide to adding NVMe support to the bios:

http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-...

Follow just the first post, it has been updated to reflect best approach as of 4 March 2017 using the latest NvmExpressDxE_2 module and involves adding just this 1 module to the bios.

I can confirm that I have done this yesterday on a Asus P9X79 Pro board and it works perfectly. Just to clarify - the Samsung 950 Pro worked fine on that board with the standard bios, just as it did on the Z420 but this was on the basis of legacy bios oprom compatibility.

Adding the module is worthwhile since it means that you can turn off compatibility support module / legacy support and enjoy even faster system boot up.

Since it was confirmed that it is possible to flash a modded bios image from the bios in the Zx20, I suggest that those with 960 EVO / PRO try this method, since apparently the older method of adding 3 seperate ffs components did not guarantee compatibility with the latest batch of NVMe SSDs.

[MtothaJ]

Modded Z420 / Z620 bios with the NvmExpressDxE_2 module: https://ufile.io/y0zyf

[etem1976]

Hi,

I have HP Z420 Workstation and install on PCIe Angelbird Wings PX1 with TOSHIBA/OCZ Rvd 400 M.2 NVME.

I can install from USB Windows 10 Pro x64 on Toshiba/OCZ NVME Drive. But I can't boot it over them.

Do you have Idee for me, what can I do there?

Can You help me there?

The Bios Modded what You have send it, it is working then?

Thanks..

Have a nice Day