Dell M.2 FAQ regarding AHCI vs RAID ON, Storage Drivers, M.2 Lanes, Performance and more

Are there plans for Dell to enable class0 (HDD password) hardware security for M2 NVME drives in the BIOS screen options, as there is already for the M2 sata drives?

(Such as Dell 9560, 9550, and similar system)

It appears that only software based security is available for most or all NVME drives on a dell system, which does slow down the system, increases the power consumption, and is not as good as hardware security.

This is a great summary! Very Nice.

Informal testing I have done also shows little if any difference in performance with AHCI or RAID for NVME drives.

However...... power consumption is a very different story. For uses such as playing media files from the NVME drive, battery life is increased by 30% when using the RAID mode.

The power penalty observed under NVME/AHCI does not apply if the drive is M2/SATA, either in AHCI or RAID.

(Tested on 9560 bios 1.3.3; 960ProNVME or 850EVO M.2.)

Greetings Ken PC,

Thank you for your kind feedback and question.

I personally am not in the loop on future developments. I'm mainly here to support what's already released. I wouldn't have the answer due to this scope of support limit.

Interesting points about the power consumption. I wasn't aware of that power difference between the modes/drive types.

Justin, thank you for a very informative post which clears some confusion regarding SSDs and configurations in Dell systems.

I'd like to ask you something specific to mine. I've seen your post regarding other systems but excluding Inspirons. If this is not appropriate place for asking such question please let me know if I should create separate thread as I'm new to the forum.

I've recently purchased Dell 7567 Inspiron (gaming) due to great spec (for light gaming and heavy programming/simulations). This system promises exactly that and so far it delivers smoothly and mostly silently. I'm really enjoying both Windows 10 PRO and Ubuntu 17.04 experience with it.

However in my country lower end models were not available with an IPS display (TN only) hence I went with very pricey top configuration which is here approaching the price tag of XPS systems but on a side note has gorgeous display and solid NVMe drive.

This system by default has 16 GB RAM (soon to be 32), 4k display and 512 GB Toshiba NVMe SSD. I bought it intending to expand RAM and disk storage.

My primary concern (after reading some vague and confusing/contradictory articles and posts) is related to addition of secondary SSD in an empty 2.5" HDD bay. I've ordered "Samsung MZ-75E500B/EU 850 EVO 500GB SATAIII 2.5" 540/520 MB/s 6.8mm Retail" (100 x 69.85 x 6.8 mm in size) hoping to utilize empty 2.5" bay in this model and expand storage.

Now that I'm trying to find anything related to this I keep stumbling upon conversations where attempts to install this drive ranging from impossible to a solutions involving BIOS settings and changing AHCI to RAID (losing ability to use Samsung Magician software and drivers) and claims that it's no supported by Dell. Even clams that in case of NVMEe drive it's impossible to add any other as literally whole bandwidth is consumed?! But those were mainly related to lower spec models sporting regular m.2 SSDs and replacing existing smaller SSD but not adding the second one as in my case and on this particular model.

Can you clarify if it's possible to add this type of drive to my laptop?

If possible, are there any penalties to performance of existing Toshiba NVMe SSD which I find to be amazing even with native Windows driver? What are preferred BIOS settings to make this kind of setup hopefully working and will I need any extra parts to install it properly? Do you have any other recommendation to avoid troubles. There were some discussions mentioning incompatibility issues with Samsung SSD drives but again those were related to primary NVMe drives which I have no intention to touch.

Another question is related to Windows driver. Currently native one is installed. Do you recommend using retail Toshiba drivers instead or is this discouraged on OEM drive. Drive in this laptop is: THNSN5512GPUK NVMe TOSHIBA 512GB (4 lanes used as reported in HWInfo tool).

My goal is dual booting this system with dedicated drives for OSes. Bios is up-to-date: 1.0.7.

Thanks in advance!

Greetings MrIgor,

Thank you for your kind feedback and question.

I can only support what Dell sells with systems from the factory. I went back into our parts list and found out that the 2.5 inch thickness that Dell sells with the 7567, is 7mm. I didn't find a shim for 6.8mm drives. With that said, I would advise against installing a 6.8mm unless you can devise a good shim. I'm thinking either 2.5 inch 7mm SSD or 2.5 inch 7mm mechanical drives will work just fine in the slot.

For the addition of a 2.5 inch drive you will need:

4x 2864D - 3X3 screw

2x Y17VW - side brackets

1x NP27Y -  HDD cable

You might check inside your own unit to see if any of these parts are already included.

Adding a 2.5 inch drive should not affect the performance of the installed NVME drive. Also, the current SATA operation setting shouldn't matter. The 7567 system does support dual drives.

It's going to be up to you to decide which SATA operation you want to use. Also up to you on which NVME driver you want to use, if you so choose to run in AHCI mode.

I'm glad you're liking the 7567. Neat machine, good choice.

You might check inside your own unit to see if any of these parts are already included

I put a 256 GB Samsung 850 Pro in my system (7.0 mm).  Hardware was already installed. 

The connector is on a cable so depth may not matter.

I don't have a 6.8 mm drive to check.

Thanks Justin, this thread help me a lot.

@Saltgrass,

Good to know, thank you.

@Sophia3100,

Glad to hear that. Thank you for your feedback.

Hello,

I have a Latitude 5580 with Toshiba M2 (THNSN5512GPUK) NVMe. I am trying to install Windows 7, but I can't because of Windows not seeing drivers. I've tried to load the mentioned drivers but nothing seems to work. The Toshiba i've got is Toshiba RG4 from what is says on Dell website.

Any help would be appreciated.

Greetings Florinbobea,

It depends on what chipset you have as the 5580 can come with either: Skylake vs. Kaby Lake.

Dell supports Windows 7 on Skylake

Dell has no support for Windows 7 on Kaby Lake

Which processor do you have?

If you have a Skylake system you need to make sure the following is true:

1. Boot mode set to UEFI

2. SATA operation set to AHCI

3. Legacy Options ROMs enable

4. Secure boot off

Dear Justin,

I was wondering if you could help me with the following regarding the use of a Samsung SSD Pro 960 for my XPS 8920 systems.

It has been known for awhile in the Community that RAID must be set to boot Windows 10 from this SSD. If AHCI is on, the system refuses to boot.

I have also been able to boot using RAID, with the SSD being installed directly to the M2 slot on the motherboard. However, if I try to use a PCIE adapter with it (and plug in a PCIE x4 or x16 lane), boot failure happens, even in RAID mode. For a reason, the SSD is still detected in BIOS, but with the weird size 185275945GB, instead of 1024GB. Note that if I install the SSD to the M2 slot and use AHCI mode, the same problem happens. My BIOS is 1.0.8, which is the latest.

Is there anyway I can do to overcome this  issue? I am OK with RAID, but I really want to use the PCIE adapter for my Samsung SSD Pro 960 rather than the M2 slot.

Thank you.

Hi all!

Please help me, I am stuck on a big problem from several days.

Here in the company where I work we have deployed about 100 Precision M5510 with internal M2 harddisk.

I need to create a full image (iso) of the hard disk as reference and also as complete backup in case of change hard disk. I will have to do this activity not only one times, but quite often.

We usually use Acronis2016 from a live USB. But on these machines is impossible to detect the hard disk M2.

We have tried all:

- Bios in legacy or UEFI

- SATA mode HCI, Raid, or even SATA disabled

How we can clone the hard disk of these machines?

We are really blocked on this...

Thanks a lot!

@LittleBear84,

Based on your note that the issue is happening on the firmware level, I think it's fairly safe to conclude that there's a firmware compatibility issue between that specific drive's firmware and the system's BIOS.

I would recommend a different drive, like Samsung PM951.

@Lordpba,

I'm afraid that question is beyond my scope but I did some searching. This may help you out:

kb.acronis.com/.../15791

Hey Justin...running into an issue here.  We bought a couple of XPS 8920's with Win 10 Pro and NVMe Hynix PC300 drive that came with it (it also came with a 2TB SATA drive but I unplugged it) , the OS had a bunch of software on it (McAfee, other stuff) so I reinstalled Win10 from scratch, now to do this I had to change it from RAID to AHCI to get the Win 10 install to recognize the NVMe drive and it seemed to work fine (I never changed it back to RAID)

Today I updated the BIOS to 1.0.9 and now Windows won't load, I tried AHCI and RAID settings, neither work...UEFI and Secure boot are ON

It get's past the Dell logo and gets to a "Media Present State, Media found" but then just errors out saying No disk found or something...

What should I do?

Note the BIOS (even the updated one) looks super old with no mouse control

I tried restoring BIOS to the old version using the instructions below but Alt+F and Alt+B doesn't do anything

http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln245206/how-to-restore-the-bios--system-setup--defaults-on-a-dell-system?lang=en

UPDATE: I just reinstalled the OS (Still on AHCI), and then started to updated the Intel chipset and rebooted, that went fine and I got into Windows....I then tried to update the SSD driver and Intel Storage Adapter (through Dell's website) and it rebooted and now I am stuck again

UPDATE2: I think I figured out the issue....if you are reinstalling Win10 you HAVE to leave the settings to UEFI and RAID ON (I don't think it matters if SecureBoot is on or not), AHCI/Legacy will not work.

When you get to the Win10 install screen it won't find the NVMe disk but you can load the NVMe drivers through the link Justin mentioned above.  Once that is done it will finish the Win10 installation and you can safely update all the drivers (including BIOS to 1.0.9) and everything should work properly!

Greetings Etsrad1,

Keep in mind that in AHCI mode Windows is using stornvme driver, not IRST. I wouldn't recommend trying to update stornvme.

It seems like your reinstall media doesn't have the IRST driver on it. Here's what I would do:

1. Set the unit back to RAID on

2. Boot back up to the reinstall media and during the partition screen click 'load driver' The driver to load is listed below. I've shown it in extracted view for your convenience.

3. Load the driver then proceed to reinstall Windows

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=WTY4TP