On 1/27/2024 1:43 PM, sticks wrote:
> Trying to help the son get his desktop computer in a little better shape.  He's a 38 year old hard working guy who is trying to make it on his own, which I really admire.
> The core box is from this class
>
> <https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/setup-user-guides/hp-z1-entry-tower-g5/model/28722929>
>
> This computer is mainly used for CAD type work, specifically SolidWorks, that he uses to
> program files to use on his Doosan CNC machine.
>
> I found a few things when looking at it.
> First, he only had a small 256 GB SSD drive, with no backup drive or additional storage capacity.
> It looks like it came with only 8 GB DDR4 ram, but was immediately updated to 16 GB.
> I'd like it to go to at least 32 to speed things up.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/191792/intel-core-i7-9700-processor-12m-cache-up-to-4-70-ghz.html

Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type) 128 GB
Memory Types DDR4-2666
Max # of Memory Channels 2 [Probably 4x32GB max, 2x32GB and remove the 2x8 might be a good choice)

> Power supply should be big enough at 250 watts, though it does have a dedicated video card
> which the SolidWorks sales guy recommended.

Yeah, the box is limited to a 75W video card. And some threads I could find,
some people pushing the Z1 as a "gaming machine". My ass. I have a 75W video card
right now, and I would not game on that. But the card the SolidWorks guy recommended
would be a Quadro with certified driver. That's what you're paying for is the
certified driver. Not for a gamers idea of performance. Video card drivers
are hobbled on purpose on gamer cards, to prevent people from doing
SolidWorks on them :-) That's one of the reasons you listen to the salesman,
for the explanation about card types and business practices.

>
> First, it has the 2nd slot available for a 1TB M.2 SSD.  I figure I could copy the 256 GB image to the new 1 TB drive, and erase the 256 GB and use for storage once I've switched the connections for booting and am sure it works.
>
> There is a slot for a SATA spinner and appropriate cables from the power supply.  Not interested for now in an external drive, because for him time is an important factor.  I don't want him sitting around waiting for files to be copied/written from/to a USB drive when he could be working.

Backup software like Macrium, computes a checksum as it goes and that is
a rate limiting step. Macrium lacks the threading for improved performance.

But for straight out Drag and Drop copies, this would be pretty fast.

I'm not very good at picking hardware, and there might be some really
expensive Apple ecosystem stuff you could use. We'll just offer a taste.
While there are currently two USB4 addon cards for sale, unlike previous
addons, nobody can use them. They require an I/O cable from some sort of
18 pin GPIO interface. Nothing in my room has the connector for that, so
no USB4 for me yet. Realtek is working on a USB4, but it looks like a
lab prototype, not a sale item. I can offer a half-rate solution instead.
This squeezes as much performance as I can manage, without doing anything
exotic.

2GB/sec add-on card for bottom slot of machine. $40 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
(two 1GB paths on a USB-C connector = 2GB/sec) Connect up the Aux power connector.
May require a Y cable of some sort. You will need the Aux power, to run some
hot-snot portable SSD.

https://www.newegg.com/orico-pe20-1c-pci-express-to-usb-card/p/17Z-0003-00026

This is your storage device. $330. USB-C with USB3.2 Gen 2x2 2GB/sec (runs 1800MB/sec).

https://www.newegg.com/sandisk-extreme-pro-v2-4tb/p/N82E16820173501

You can use the pulldown menu here, and see the results of the storage consistency test of it.
Some flash drives run out of their "fake SLC cache" before the transfer is finished, and the
transfer rate drops to 1/2 or 1/3 of the original rate. It's possible the test used here,
just didn't run long enough to see the drive poop out.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/18734/samsung-portable-ssd-t7-shield-4tb-review-ip65-pssd-gets-a-capacity-upgrade/2

>
> It is rather intimidating looking for hardware, especially when I see things from very knowledgeable people here talking about problems and flaws I wouldn't even know existed.  So my questions.
>
> The new SSD should be straight forward, but I'm wondering if there are things in
> particular I should look for?  I think I want an 1 TB M.2 NVMe drive.  I know I
> have to check to make sure length and width are the same.  Anything else regarding
> capabilities I have to consider?

The motherboard needs the standoff and the screw, for mounting your M.2 .
If it were a vertical mount, like a toaster, it might need some support.

I keep an NVMe in a box. You can see this is a 2280.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/zvjWcgHN/Samsung-2280-NVMe.jpg

A PCIe Rev4 will run at Rev3 rates. The firmware on these should be fixed by now.
If there's an issue.

https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-980-PRO-SSD-1TB/dp/B08GLX7TNT?th=1

A PCIe Rev3 will run at Rev3 rates. 3500MB/sec or so. These are
V-NAND 3-bit MLC, and they're not supposed to become mushy three months
after you write a file to them.

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/ssd-970-pro-nvme-m2-1tb-mz-v7p1t0bw/#specs

It was originally announced that the width of the Rev5 ones would
be different, but I don't know what has become of the issue. There is
no particular reason to be even remotely interested in those. They've
been working on making those run at 14000MB/sec, which required waiting
for the flash chips to start yielding at the toggle rate required of the
chip interface. Some controllers have multiple channels, as part of the
bandwidth management.

>
> Ram should be straight forward for the most part.  Biggest question is if the board will recognize two additional 16GB sticks, or if I would have to settle for additional 8 GB stick?  I think it came with 2666 MHZ, and I see you can go faster.  Would mixing the two speeds just fallback to the 2666 MHz speed meaning it would be useless to get the faster ram?  Also, the CAD is very resource using things and I see one of the sticks in it has the heatsinks on it.  Are these really needed on Ram or are they hype?

You would buy 2x32GB and remove the 8GB ones and put them in the antistatic packaging
of the shipped items. There's no reason to be mixing things that far apart on
capacity.

The heatsinks are hype. Surface temperature may be 45C.

Back in RDRAM days, heatsinks were *riveted* to the module. The trick was, one of
eight chips would get hot, and dissipate 4 watts. That's because a serial interface was
involved, and a single chip could have a loop running over it and making it hot.
Having a heatsink to spread the 4W over a larger surface, was absolutely required.
You couldn't take chances.

Regular DRAM now, all chips share equal heating and the power is pretty low.
The processors have interfaces to memory, and the processors do not
allow truly excessive voltages to be used.

You used to be able to run Winbond 2.5V memory at 3.3V, to give an idea what
the fast-and-loose times were like. And those memories had forced air cooling
positioned over top.

>
> Installing a SATA spinner for backups has me wondering if 7200 rpm drive is necessary, since most of the backing up will be middle of the night. How much difference does cache make?  I've seen cheaper ones with 64 MB and what look like better at 256 MB and I believe expensive ones with 512 MB.  I also figure to get him current, I should be looking for SATA 6 capable drives?
>
> Any and all advice, as well as things to either look at or stay away from really appreciated.
>
> TIA
> Sticks

Cache wasn't really working as cache in the past. It tended to be abused by the
firmware as "scratch". For example, IBM used to keep a sector substitution table
in the SRAM at the time.

Once 512e (emulated drive, 4K physical, 512 byte virtual interface) came along,
the cache really had to work then. One side effect, is the drive can accept
1400 commands a second, when the platter only rotates 120 times per second.
Previously, the command rate would be less than the rotation rate or
less than 120 commands per second.

The 512e needs read-modify-write for updating 4K chunks on the platter, with
512 byte fractional operations. That is why the drive needed to cache some
materials and do the writes when it had the time.

The SATA AHCI has tagged queuing with 7 outstanding tags. This allows the
drive to plan the head movement, and pick the shortest path to getting things
done. The tags come back with an ACK, out of order. The cache can hold those
AHCI things until they are processed. As before, the drive has a limit on the
size of a transaction, like say, only doing 1MB of writes, at a time.

The cache can also work as a track buffer. If a request hits in the buffer, the
controller answers the query using the track buffer contents. This is in effect,
a "read ahead" capability. It's opportunistic and works if the track buffer
happens to have what you want.

If your backups are only Macrium MRIMG files and nothing else, you don't
need anything from the controller. As long as the drive has the sequential
you want, you're done. However, if you ever try to install an OS on a
5900RPM lame drive, you will soon find out why it is only for backups.

Paul