HP 820 Tower - RED EDITION

[Buck Forester]

But will this HP workstation be able to adequately process iPhone footage?

[Jon Jones]

I think it's sick that RED and HP and Adobe are teaming up to make a super editing platform.

[Ces Peynetti]

I got to see this beast at the Adobe Roadshow in LA today. It's a thing of beauty. I hope I can get my hands on one of these sometime soon.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

SSD update...

Turned out to be far less drama than expected. All appears to be well now. HP guys were very responsive, but in the end they were a bit stumped as to what the problem could have been without getting their hands on the hardware for diagnosis -- something I was planning to do in the next few days. However, as luck falls, they released the v1.08 firmware update for the Z820 and clearing the CMOS along with flashing the new BIOS cured the issue. I was up and running with the Samsung 830 SSD immediately after that and I spent the better part of yesterday morning testing it. I then did a fresh system install onto the OCZ Vertex 4 and it works great as well. I'm sticking with the OCZ... Same read times between the two, the OCZ is about 100MB/s faster on writes. The Samsung has proven reliability, the OCZ is newer, but I'm going for it.

IN the midst of the firmware update and everything else I did hear back regarding some of the info I sent to OCZ. It seems that one of the predominant theories there, and where they have seen the same behavior before, is with SATA power management, or a problem with the power management. I'm going to suggest it to the guys at HP tomorrow when I talk to them again, but it's possible that the release firmware from April for the Z820 has a bug in the SATA power management. Having it enabled or disabled didn't seem to make a difference and it seems that the log file from the Vertex4 was showing improper or missing wake or status instructions. The issue may be moot as it seems to be completely resolved with the updated firmware.

[Eric Z]

Glad to hear that, Jeff.
Keep up the great work!!

BTW, the release notes of BIOS v1.08 don't mention anything relating to SATA power in AHCI/RAID mode.

[Brad Allen]

Great to hear Jeff - glad you're back up and running :)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

BTW, the release notes of BIOS v1.08 don't mention anything relating to SATA power in AHCI/RAID mode.

Yeah, I know... Not sure if it has anything to do with power or not. Could be something screwy with the system or one of those fluke things. I had pulled all the extra stuff, including drives, disabled the SAS controller, etc.. cleared the CMOS, re-flashed the BIOS, etc.. all more than once and to no avail. First time I load the new v1.08 firmware it all worked again. :)

I want to flash back to the v1.02 BIOS and see if things work or if they're broken again with the old firmware. OTOH, I'm not sure if I want to tempt disaster and probably best to just be glad it works and move on.

[Elsie N]

Yeah, I know... Not sure if it has anything to do with power or not. Could be something screwy with the system or one of those fluke things. I had pulled all the extra stuff, including drives, disabled the SAS controller, etc.. cleared the CMOS, re-flashed the BIOS, etc.. all more than once and to no avail. First time I load the new v1.08 firmware it all worked again. :)

I want to flash back to the v1.02 BIOS and see if things work or if they're broken again with the old firmware. OTOH, I'm not sure if I want to tempt disaster and probably best to just be glad it works and move on.

Sounds like Epic isn't the only Big Macheen that relies on firmware updates to make it howl. '-)

[Richard Tran]

Heh heh heh the Fusion is pretty quick. I put it in a 4x slot just because that was the slot that was readily available.. and its reading just below a GB/s.

Hi Jarred,

Just curious what the benefits of the Fusion are, compared to a setup like this?

Just a Raid card with 8 SSDs, and you can get 3GB/s, and yet even more capacity. (Although perhaps bulkier)

I am using a cheap Highpoint 2720, and with 2 SSD's get about 900mb/s.

I don't see it, but want to understand.

http://thessdreview.com/raid-enterpr...r-performance/

[Antoine Baumann]

what ssd are you using?

thanks,