We have all run into the same issue before: a power user has cramped office or work space but requires a powerful workstation.

At times like that, we turn to HP and the z2xx SFF-series* Personal Workstations.

These units are compact, powerful, and reliable.

For the past 4¼ months, I have had a copy of the latest HP z220 Personal Workstation at MedikLabs for a SmallBizWindows review.

The HP Z220 SFF Personal Workstation
HP workstations are, in my mind, and from both our reviews and my daily work experience, being the user of three z600 Personal workstations in all my offices, the global standard-bearers where workstations are concerned.

And the HP Workstation Team, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, has delivered.

Every time.

The new z220 series build on the z210 I reviewed last year.

There are some great components in the z220 SFF:

• Intel 2 ^nd Gen Intel Core i3 to 3 ^rd Gen Core i5, Core i7, and 3.6 GHz Xeon E3 quad-core CPUs – which can give you up to 4.0 GHZ when Inter Turbo Boost is employed
• Up to NVIDIA NVS300 or AMD FirePro V3900 professional GPUs
• DDR3 1600 ECC RAM up to 32 GB in 4 slots
• SATA SSD capable up to 300GB
• Blu-Ray capable
• 10 – yes, 10 – USB slots: 4 rear USB 3.0 slots, with 2 rear, and four front USB 2.0 slots
• 3 low-profile PCI Express slots
• 90% efficiency small form factor case

The HP z220 SFF Personal Workstation is probably the bottom entry-level workstation in HP’s portfolio.

Reviewing the HP z200 SFF
The HP z220 SFF showed up in a box in which it was snugly packed.

The package contained the z220, a keyboard, mouse, power cables, and some reading material.

The system came configured with Microsoft Windows 7 Professional.

I immediately did a wipe of the system and installed a fresh instance of Windows 7 Enterprise edition followed by a Windows 8 RP VM. The Windows 8 RP VM was set up for both dual boot and a boot from within Windows 7.

The Logikworx Professional Desktop was installed, and I was off.

HP Z220 SFF Performance
One of the thinks I wanted to see was this box’s performance vis-à-vis that of my 2-year old HP z600.

Why?

HP Workstations come in 4 tiers: the entry-level Z2xx, the next-up Z4xx, the performance slimline Z6xx, and the monster everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink Z8xx series.

I use z600s in the trio of offices I work out of, and I want to see if my workstations, next to the top a couple of HP workstation iterations ago, were still up there.

They aren’t**.

Using just about every metric, the z220 equaled or beat my comparably-equipped z600 workstation which has only one (1) 128 GB SSD.

For the next several weeks, I used the Z220 as my personal daily box at MedikLabs. It simply purred.

Next up, I decided to increase the cap util of the Z220 by running a 4GB RAM Windows Server 2008 VM on the system simultaneously with my use of the z220 as a workstation. This VM contained a working copy of the EMR/EHR (electronic medical records/electronic health records) suite in use at MedikLabs for daily operations.

It ran swimmingly well.

After 6 weeks running in that configuration, the z220 was tasked with the final test of our review regime: in use as a rendering workstation for my friendly local Realtor.

Subsequent to introducing my realtor guinea pig to the beauty of 3D walkthroughs of properties their firm has on the market, I fear I must have created a monster.

3D walkthroughs of the properties has been a competitive advantage for them, as it engrosses prospective sellers’ imaginations in not just their offices, but also wherever the real estate agents meet with buyers or sellers at their leisure.

This competitive advantage comes at a price though: it requires copious amounts of energy to create those walkthroughs.

I deployed the z220 in a fresh config there after installing the requisite software.

It reduced the time required by their z400 to render their 3D walkthroughs considerably.

After a month at the real estate office, I finally returned the Z220 to MedikLabs where I have used it as a test box for Windows 8, where it garnered an across-the-board 8.0 in the WEI ratings.

Conclusions
The Z220 is a well thought out box.

It is fast, extremely quiet, and both space and energy efficient.

More that that, it is quite powerful for its diminutive size, and carries with it the provenance of HP Workstations.

The impressive number of USB ports – 10, with 4 of them being USB 3.0 – and the 3 expansion slots means that this system is able to grow with users as well.

As a result, it has earned the SmallBizWindows Business Ready 5-Star Award.

We recommend it.

• HP Z220 SFF Personal Workstation As Tested
• Basic z220 system
• 16 GB DDR3-1600 ECC RAM
• NVIDIA MVS300 GPU
• Dual 300 GB HP SATA SSDs
• Blu-Ray reader-writer
• Tested with:
• HP LP2275w monitor
• HP LP2480zx DreamColor monitor
• Dual HP ZR30w 30” monitors

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* SFF: Small Form Factor

** For which I’m annoyed, for they haven’t reached EOL yet!

© 2012, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited