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Precision Tower 3620: M.2 SSD questions
Hello all,
I have a Precision 3620 system, with a 2x1Tb RAID-1 drive. This is also the boot drive. From the owner's manual it is clear that this system also has a M.2 slot. Since the system clearly needs a performance boost in read/write performance, I was thinking of installing some sort of M.2 SSD, and move the boot environment to the SSD, using some software like perhaps Macrium. I'd be grateful if you could answer any of the following questions.
1) Does this system (with the latest firmware) support NVMe M.2 SSDs? Are M.2 / NVMe Samsung EVOs 256Gb supported? When searching for motherboards (at least recently) one can find storage compatibility guidelines. I've not been able to find anything here, so any help will be appreciated. I have read this but it was laptop oriented...
2) Is it feasible to transfer (using Macrium/Acronis) the working system (which currently is less than 60Gb) from the RAID to the M.2 SSD and boot from there, by configuring UEFI appropriately? If so, how?
3) Is warranty made void, by installing a third-party M.2 SSD?
Thanks in advance for your time!
ejn63
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December 15th, 2017 04:00
Yes, this system will support an NVME M.2 drive.
No, installing one will not void the warranty - though the drive itself won't be covered by Dell.
The rest of the answer depends on what operating system you have installed. Windows 7 can be very problematic with NVMe drives -- you stand a much better chance of having an OS transfer work with Windows 10, but at a bare minimum, make an image to an external drive, make sure your data is readable (verify the image) BEFORE you start making changes. There is an unknown possibility that the cloning process may not work -- in which case you'll need a fallback plan.
It would be far safer to plan on a clean install of the OS after you install the NVMe drive -- that may well wind up being the only option.
painful8th
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December 16th, 2017 07:00
Thank you the information supplied.
The current OS is (the latest) Windows 10 Pro. So aI do not anticipate any issues there. After cloning to SSD I will still keep the RAID-1 drive as is, I'll just adjust things so that the boot system is the M.2 SSD one.
Do you have any idea how can I tell which types (ie dimensions like 2280 etc) the M.2 drive on this system accepts?
Additionally, do you have any idea how can I obtain an even unofficial list of M.2/NVMe compatible drives for this system?
EDIT: Do you have any idea if the screw needed to attach the M.2 is included with the M.2 drive?
ejn63
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December 16th, 2017 08:00
2280 is the most common size and will fit. Check Dell's driver site to see what drives it ships the system with -- others will work, but if you're looking for what Dell supports, the information will be there.
M.2 drive kits should have the screw included -- bare drives won't. Check the system as well - the standoff needs to be there, if not the screw - -or you'll need both parts.
painful8th
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December 16th, 2017 08:00
Thanks again, I believe the standoff is there, the screw isn't.
***, why does it feel that from an engineering viewpoint things could be easier?
painful8th
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December 18th, 2017 03:00
The lack of a spacer and screw seems to be a problem with 3620, see this: en.community.dell.com/.../21038631
painful8th
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December 27th, 2017 23:00
Okay,
this is my try (trial perhaps?) to have a go at installing a Samsung EVO 960 (NVMe) on a RAID-1 equipped 3620.
I had to find a M2x3mm screw first to lock this thing down. Job done. Second, I booted up the system. And there started the bad news, as well as the bad news.
Good news: Intel RST drivers "saw" the NVMe just fine.
Bad news? Well:
1) Samsung's Magician software did not like the fact that the 960 was installed on a RAID-active controller. So there was (and still is) no way to update firmware for the 960, check its health etc. I was also not able to install the special, performance-improving (AFAIK) Samsung NVMe driver, probably for the same reason.
2) What is worst is that the RAID mirror is now degraded. After the first boot with the SSD drive, the mirror was just fine (I made sure to check). After the second boot it wasn't, the disk does not seem to be there... I'll try to tackle the issue later on.
In any case, since the NVMe was at leasst visible to the system, I booted up with a Macrium Reflect boot usb, only to find out that it could detect neither the HDD mirror RAID, nor the 960... Seemed that the Macrium boot disk lacked the Intel RST drivers. So, I booted back into Windows, installed Macrium Reflect Free (was afraid that it would not clone WIndows for Workstations, but it did) and produced a new boot USB that contained these drivers.
Booting from this USB, the system now detected both drives. I elected to clone from the RAID HDDs to the SSD, after tuning manually destination partition sizes, since Macrium complained. Did it, system booted up nicely.
Now, I have to make sure that it is the NVMe I am running the system from. There are a couple of important issues to fix:
1) 960 Evo firmware: thankfully there's a firmware in ISO format. Did not have time to use it, but it certainly has to be upgraded
2) Make sure that it is the NVMe I am booting from (not sure how I'll go about that, perhaps recreate the BCD)
3) Fix the RAID mirror.
All in all, this is not for the faint-hearted. Installation should be ok on non-RAID systems, but on this one it is sort of a challenge.
Darr.Darr
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December 28th, 2017 06:00
If you turn off the Computer, unplug the SATA and power cables to the RAID array, turn computer back on... and it boots OK, you can be pretty sure it's using the M.2 drive. :)
painful8th
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December 28th, 2017 07:00
Thought of that, I am a bit afraid whether the system will see the raid after reconnecting the hdds...
painful8th
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January 1st, 2018 03:00
I had to delve into BCD to check things out. As it were, I had to change the windows boot loader entry to point into the M.2 partitions. The RAID was automatically reconstructed too, its issue had nothing to do with the M.2 boot woes.
All in all, great product but awful, non-supportive support. Thanks god for the community help :thumbsup: