790 SFF, i5, Windows 10, NVMe PCIe SSD

That part number for the Samsung cannot be correct. The MZ-M6E250BW  is an mSATA SSD. The 960 EVO part number is MZ-V6E250BW which is an NVME drive. Your system can take neither. You need a 2.5" SATA SSD. Or are you getting a PCIe adapter then installing an NVME drive on the adapter? Windows would in all likelihood not be able to boot from an SSD in that configuration.  If not an adapter then you need a drive more like the following. And the speeds are 550MB/s Read, 520MB/s write.

https://www.samsung.com/ca/memory-storage/860-evo-sata-3-2-5-ssd/MZ-76E250BAM/

You are right the Best Buy listing is erroneous that drive is not NVME 
 
I already have 2 SSD SATA drives installed but looking to add the faster NVME drive in the PCIE slot. 
 
OK So if I add a pcie adapter
and an NVME drive - boot is determined in the BIOS not Win10 right?

Best might be to buy and try and if it does not work, return :)

 Samsung MZ-V7E250BW 
with this adapter  axGear M.2 NVMe SSD NGFF TO PCI-E Adapter

Thank you :)

That's a Samsung 970 EVO, which only boots UEFI - which doesn't seem to work with PCIe/NVMe on the OptiPlex 790 series.  It will probably work fine as a data-only drive in the OptiPlex 790.

But, if you're looking to boot, you need to try an old Samsung 950 PRO from someplace like ebay.  It has to be one of two very specific part numbers (and NOT an "OEM" Samsung 950 PRO, as some sellers post their item):

• MZ-VKV256 (model# on device) - SSD 950 PRO NVMe M.2 256GB, aka model code MZ-V5P256BW
• MZ-VKV512 (model# on device) - SSD 950 PRO NVMe M.2 512GB, aka model code MZ-V5P512BW

Adapter looks fine, assuming you're talking about something like this.

Thanks

Thanks for your post, I do have a 512GB Samsung 950 PRO, just recently upgraded that PC to a 512GB 970 PRO, so have the old to spare.

Will install a MSI GT 1030 GDDR5 GPU that uses only 30W (if not OC'd) in the x4 slot, being it's a x4 card & try the Samsung 950 PRO in the x16 slot. There are published workarounds to get these to boot, although may require some extra work. 

The PC (Optiplex 790 DT) has yet to arrive, will also be upgrading the CPU with an i5-2400 on hand & max the RAM out at 16GB. This will be for my wife, who has been running Windows 10 on a Optiplex 780 DT with Core 2 Quad 9650, which was great for Windows 7 (WEI of 7.4 overall) & 8.1. 

However, given the power requirements of Windows 10, plus Google Chrome & security, the Optiplex 780 is getting long in the tooth. Many who owns Sandy Bridge systems still refuses to let go & for good reason. The CPU 's were properly assembled with solder, doesn't need a delid & fresh liquid metal every 2-3 years (unlike my i7-4790K). Other than no PCIe 3.0, still a decent PC, I also have it's successor, a Optiplex 990 MT that the i5-2400 came out of in favor of an i7-2600 (wanted i7-2700, pricing a bit high. 

If this Samsung 950 PRO install is a success, even if this Topic is closed, will post the results so that others can benefit. There's tens of thousands of these machines on eBay for less than $100 shipped, some with an i5 already installed. Just have to install a HDD (the old was destroyed) or has been wiped & the OS has to be installed. 

By chance, there's a hotfix from Microsoft for installing Windows 7 on NVMe SSD's. If by chance they've took it down, am sure other sites has it for download. Although the speed will be capped at 1,500MB/sec on reads & writes on PCIe 2.0, no worries, will still be 3x faster than most any 2.5" SSD. In the case of the 512GB 950 PRO, write speeds were already just over 1,500MB/sec, so if it can hold at that, will be fantastic. 

Again, thanks for the advice, never give up!

Cat

Another option to consider for a M.2 NVMe SSD with a Legacy Option ROM like the Samsung 950 PRO is the Plextor M8Pe.  Note other recent Plextor M.2 NVMe SSD series do NOT have a Legacy Option ROM (M8Se, M9Pe, etc.).

Booting off any M.2 NVMe SSD could probably also be done by using a working UEFI implementation that will boot NVMe.  Of course, it would be best if the BIOS was just fixed by Dell, but originally UEFI was implemented in software that's open source.  One implementation of this is Clover.  It's not straight-forward to set up, but I've used it to provide NVMe boot support on a non-UEFI, Legacy BIOS system (I'm able to chain boot to Windows 10 running on a Samsung 970 EVO Plus).  I've also seen others use it on UEFI systems where NVMe boot support was broken, as is the case with the Optiplex 790.  Configuring Clover on a UEFI system should be easier than a non-UEFI one (since I don't think writing special MBR and PBR sectors to a USB stick is required), but it's not an out-of-the-box experience.  Basically, the system boots to a USB stick that has Clover on it which adds working UEFI and NVMe boot support and then chain boots to the NVMe drive.

Techgee, while I've heard of the Clover option, will be the last route I take, and likely won't.

However, there's been a few workarounds published (I forget his name), one was running a forum from which he retired, to make NVMe (& SATA) work with many MB's, this man is a genius. I believe a lot of what he done had to do with injecting drivers into the install media. 

By chance, there's a Gibabyte tool which can inject NVMe & USB drivers into Windows 7 media. Just have to select options at time of building. EDIT: Never mind, the (Gigabyte) download has been taken down, Malwarebytes displays a warning, although I have the tool, has been scanned countless times & it's clean. It's just that they (like others) has caved into pressure from Microsoft not to support Windows 7. 

If by chance one's looking for the tool, it's called 'WindowsImageTool' or search zipped name: (mb_utility_windowsimagetool_B18.0213.1)

SHA-1 0B80FADE22DC7CA1F9D3CA0803651D9E04D53C47

SHA-256 3459A264123F0F61764F70625B9BD80A2349B2E935CA5087A8B086C455F96DB8

These hashes are extremely important when working with tools of this nature. If not matching, discard the download. I use MD5_and_SHA_Checksum_Utility from the below link, when opened, Windows Update will install a component before usage (I believe a part of .NET Framwork 3.5). Yet it's a godsend to know what one's getting when one publishes a link with SHA checksums. Can be used to check other downloads, like ISO's & drivers (Dell includes SHA hashes for most all of their drivers). 

https://raylin.wordpress.com/downloads/md5-sha-1-checksum-utility/

Below is the link to Gigabyte tool & after downloading, hashes matched when checked. I performed the search with the tool's zipped name, downloaded to another folder & after comparing the SHA-256 number, unzipped & scanned with Malwarebytes Premium. All is clean. 

https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/MOTHERBOARD/GIGABYTE/Gigabyte-B450-AORUS-ELITE-rev-1-0-Windows-USB-Installation-utility-B18-0213-1.shtml

While this tool takes a bit to run, maybe an hour on a 7200 rpm HDD, it's very effective, was intended (by 3rd party sources) to install NVMe & other support for Windows 7, yet can also be used with Windows 8, 8.1 & 10 media. While Windows 10 has the drivers, many are generic, this one has the real Samsung & Intel NVMe drivers. 

After being sure to first perform a full disk backup of the successfully installed OS with a software such as Macrium Reflect, the updated Samsung and/or Intel NVMe drivers can be downloaded from their site(s) and used. Samsung regularly publishes newer NVMe drivers, the 950 PRO is still being supported. 

BTW, after reading the description of computer purchased, noticed it has Windows 10 Pro already installed. Which isn't the norm, the drive is usually destroyed and/or professionally wiped, as these computers has been used for business purposes. Resellers will buy all stock (including bad ones), take those which works & sells at 3 to 5% of the original price. A steal for a PC which should last another 7-8 years, replacement parts are also plentiful & cheap. By chance, some retailers says the MSRP was over $2,100, so $59.99 plus $14.99 for a year SquareTrade warranty is just under 4% of the price when new. 

And whether or not the NVMe project succeeds, I'll likely get longer service out of it than the original purchaser, have Optiplex 780 machines from the XP/Vista era (purchased in 2012-13) running Windows 10 & have donated a couple working Optiplex 740's (due to horrid NVIDIA motherboard & support). The Optiplex 990 MT purchased not long ago will soon be sporting an EVGA GTX 770 Classified 4GB GDDR5, although will have to remove the drive cage, the card is a monster. EVGA 650W G3 PSU already installed. There's a space below the optical drive to mount the 3.5", can tuck the 2.5" SSD above the optical drive. And it's fast! I expect the 790 to be just as much so, have a low profile USB 3.0 card to add support in a x1 slot for faster backup speed. 

Will use the two Optiplex 780's to run webcams for security, both has served their purpose & are still upgrading fine, one running Windows 10 1909 Pro x64. It's amazing how Windows has supported these machines, one running the latest Windows Insider Preview on the fast track.....wow is all I can say!

I'll let you know how the NVMe project turns out, if it doesn't, nothing lost, as the hardware is owned. Can install in one of my AMD FX machines. Sadly, Dell in their infinite wisdom made what looked to be a x4 slot in my XPS 8700 electrically a x1 one, although initially was advertised as having x4 support. Glad I didn't have the cash for one of those first gen Plextor NVMe SSD's, because that was my next intended purchase. I don't understand why Dell done this, nor having a single 4 pin CPU power port. The machine throttles when running the Intel XTU benchmark, all because of this. This is why when wanting a new rig, I now build my own, was highly disappointed at Dell for penny pinching at the most, $5 on both. They's do the same with the XPS 8900, rather than installing a Ultra M.2 port, would be a x2 (10 Gbps). However, one could install it in a x4 adapter & all would be fine. The M.2 slot could then be used for a gumstick SATA-3 SSD to save room. 

Thanks for replying, will keep you up to date!

Cat

Based on my experience of how well an Optiplex 7010 performs with a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO, actually faster in real world usage than my custom built PC sporting a 512GB Samsung 970 PRO running all types of tasks. It's not worth the trouble to purchase an overpriced (& likely used) 950 PRO.

The Samsung 950/960 EVO/PRO SSD's are fine for much of the Optiplex line. Even my older 780 model, one of my favorites runs great with the 256GB PRO model, SATA-2 doesn't hamper the performance a lot. Tried using RAPID, but is no faster & PC acts buggy (I presume the driver used for the feature). 

Maybe with newer models, worth the upgrade, not so on legacy models, it would be only for bragging rights & machine performance may not be as good. Or in my experience, was the case & I performed a clean install. 

Regards,

Cat

your speccy links are not 7010

KWVT8is xps 8700