Simplified Installation of M.2 NVMe Drives on HP z420, z620, z820

[Charkatak]

@MtothaJ,

Few quick questions. 

1) I have been trying to find out if my z420 contains LSI SAS Controller.  Some websites point to an optional one, but I do know the mother board has many SATA ports from 0-6, but also it seems that there are 4 more ports to the left of port 0 and 1.  Could it be SAS ports?  or SAS controller should be a PCI card? (if yes, then I don't have it)

2) If my device has SAS controller, then I read on HPs site that the max capacity is 256GB, but on some other sites it lists 1.2TB max.  So go figure.

3) To make RAID 0, may I just connect the drives to SATA port 0 and 1 or do I need to specifically connect my drives to SAS?

Thanks

[DGroves]

as far as i know, only the z640/z840 have onboard SAS/SATA LSI controllers the z420 has 6 onboard SATA ports

the z420 does have a optional LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i PCI-E card

the LSI 9260 card is a Raid only card no JBOD (IE single disks) and supports any currently available SAS/SATA drive up to 10TB however there is a limit on the size of the boot drive unless running win 8 or win 10 in which the boot partition can be up to 2 GB in MBR mode and larger if using GPT (UEFI Mode)

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03465686

the z420 can also use "software Raid", using the onboard SATA ports however you can not boot from this it is configured/created using windows  disk managment

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-open-disk-management-2626080

[Charkatak]

Thanks for the info!

Looks like there shouldn't be any problems in configuring my z420 with the following:

1) Identical 2x512GB SSD SATA drives in RAID 0 using on-board SATA controller(enabling bios settings for Raid support)

2) CTRL+I at boot to configure RAID options

3) Making sure to have GPT partiton instead of MBR(I believe most of my disks do have GPT)

4) Install Win 10 and the system should have no issues booting

Did I miss anything?

Will I be able to add 1 or 2 other regular HDDs in the system when RAID is active for the drives above?  I would use them as storage(raid won't be needed in this case)

[DGroves]

if you use the MS USB win 10 creation tool you should have no problems as it creates a dual boot setup

IE- MBR or UEFI/Secure Boot installs both work

if you select a iso image and then want to make a bootable usb key from that image with UEFI w/Secure boot enabled in the bios

use rufus and select GPT Install in the options instead of MBR+UEFI

if you have a problem with setup failing to create partitions, then either disable secure boot/fast boot in the bios or make a UEFI/GPT USB key via rufus as mentioned above

[Charkatak]

I have USB Stick with Win 10 which I use to boot and install the OS.  In Raid 0, I think 2 drives become one and the size will be 512GB(not 1TB total)  

So once RAID is configures, OS is installed, does it automatically launch and boot or I would need to pick a boot device from boot menu every time?

Sorry, it has been more more than 10 years since I have dealt with Desktop PCs and haven't assembled them or configured any of them.  It is all coming back to me and I hope to pick it up quickly.

Thanks!

@DGroves

[DGroves]

go back and rer-ead my original post,........

the onboard intel raid is software based and is not bootable

if you want a bootable raid you will need a card that supports this

the lsi 9260 is raid only

the LSI 9211 can be configured as HBA (adds more SATA ports no raid) or  as a Raid 0/1card (not recomended as it's a slow raid card)

the dell Perc H310 card, gives both JBOD and Raid options from it's custom bios, however you need to add a small fan to the card's heatsink to prevent overheating when used in a non dell system  also 2 pins on the pci-e  fingers may need to be covered with nail polish to enable proper operation (if you buy the card i can provide the nessary info for the fix

i have used the perc in my z800 (using the covered pci finger fix) and it works quite well

[ShadowX360]

A bit off topic, but also look at the HP H220 if you need an HBA. Overall the Samsung 950 Pro and other NVMe drives may not be the best initial investment for performance unless you are heavily sequential I/O limited. I work with 20TB+ data sets and I found it a better investment to get larger 850/860 Pro drives for their higher endurance and size in comparison to an NVMe drive for the similar cost. I use the SSDs partially for a writeback cache that automatically flushes to HDDs, as well as for manual/system-managed hot files via Storage Spaces and ReFS in Windows. With hardware RAID, I'm always worried about data recovery after failure of the controller, while I don't have those issues with software. You should really consider it if you're using Windows or at least running it as a host.

[LevelsAndMaps]

The best result I can do:

So here's how it goes:
the generic x79 or z97 solution doesn't work. I've tried going with the default UEFI + Nvme drivers, but I get a hang on blackscreen after loading NVME drivers.

Sooo...

I happen to run in to this fella in Russia, who did a very lightweight Tiancore mod of his own (I have no clue where he branched off, and why this specific build works on z620)
http://www.multiboot.ru/DUET.htm

Then I add into his version the generic NVMe driver (you can find it practically on the first google search :P)

Then I customize startup.nsh with the script:

echo step1
connect -r
set -v efishellmode 1.1.2
map -u
echo step 2
load fs5:\EFI\Drivers\Nvm.efi
echo step2
map -u
echo step3
fs7:\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi

where fs5 = multiboot stick
fs7 = Samsung 970 Evo 😉

============= NEXT STEPS ====================

Getting the decompiled version of the multiboot (from the russian webpage listed above), becoming able to compile it myself (there's a guide there, the only setback is it's made with very specific and very old VS 2015 😞  - and changing it so I don't have to "Press any key" after it loads the initial rEFInd page.... also maybe make it even faster, dropping the timeout before shell loading, etc.



For me though, pressing a key during boot - but having a fast boot and a fast WinDrive - still worth it!

My files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ao5SxcLHMRij3IlW_FBKwRbbOjot7aif?usp=sharing

Cheers!

[LevelsAndMaps]

Aaaand it's done! 

I decided to remove the bootloader - as I was adding extra steps for nothing

AND 

using the full UEFI 2015 build. Works like a charm, no longer crashing when loading nvm drivers.

Here's the final EFI build - now getting to windows without any user input (like normal PCs should do 😛 )
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1muN3k_eXJ2PcZfDWtWEmpG0ga-nUVNxv?usp=sharing

[hmseb]

---

@LevelsAndMaps wrote:

Aaaand it's done! 

I decided to remove the bootloader - as I was adding extra steps for nothing

AND 

using the full UEFI 2015 build. Works like a charm, no longer crashing when loading nvm drivers.

Here's the final EFI build - now getting to windows without any user input (like normal PCs should do 😛 )
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1muN3k_eXJ2PcZfDWtWEmpG0ga-nUVNxv?usp=sharing

---

FINALLY!

This works on my z420 with XPG SX8200

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!