m17 R4, not recognizing SSD in slot 2

Question

Hi.

Maybe some of you can help me solve this...

I just got my new Alienware m17 R4 and it came with two 512GB SSD drives, 1 in slot 1 and one in slot 2

When I look at the diskspace for C: it shows 1 GB so I know they are working.

I took them both out and replaced them with Western Digital Blue 3D Nano SATA SSD M.2 2280

Slot one is only recognized in the BIOS. The drive shows up but not as an M.2 drive. Rather it says First HDD or something like that.

ALL M.2 entries in the BIOS are blank.

I tried swapping them, nothing. Only detects SLOT 1 SSD.

I also have a data drive M.2 2230 I believe 400GB or something like that that came with it. That I left alone.

Anyone have any ideas?

crimsom · Accepted Answer

Hi @JohnC1000 it seems that your Alienware m17 R4 motherboard is similar to my Alienware 17 R5 motherboard, and only one slot will accept a SATA drive, all slots accept PCIe NVMe drives. My Dell 17 R5 storage information confirms this, but your Dell m17 R4 storage information is inaccurate, and fails to include the third PCIe NVMe slot. After all, who wants to install a slow SATA in a high performance NVMe Alienware laptop?

There should be text on the motherboard that says PCIE SSD ONLY, or something similar.

Alienware 17 R5 motherboard, PCIE SSD ONLY

Alienware m17 R4 with rear cover removed, three PCIe NVMe drives

A51-06 · Accepted Answer

I think it says that because maybe they didn’t bother editing the bios to say SATA M.2 or the configuration with a HDD Bios was still on the non 2.5 inch bay model.

crimsom · Accepted Answer

Hi @JohnC1000 the Dell documentation is rubbish when it comes to providing detail. I messed around trying to figure out which PCIe slot accepted SATA or NVMe card. No damage, so you should have no damage.

I did try giving feedback on the 17 R5 storage webpage, changes were made but I wanted everyone to see table say slot SSD-1, SSD-2, SSD-3 accepts SATA or NVMe cards. To spell it out with clarity.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @JohnC1000 welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.

From your description, this Alienware m17 R4 was supplied with two identical M.2 512GB SSD drives working as a 1TB RAID 0, OS(C:) boot drive. Data is shared 50 50 between both drives. and boot into operating system will only occur if both drives are installed. Hopefully both of these SSDs are ultrafast M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe.

There is no detectable performance benefit in having two NVMe drives in RAID 0 configuration and this is inherently unreliable because if one drive becomes unrecoverable, both drives have to be replaced.

Advocate clone (copy) the OS(C:) boot drive to a single ultrafast M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe card with another clone as the standby OS(C:) boot drive that can be swapped in to get system up and running within minutes. The Data drive should have all your personal files, so that the OS(C:) temporary files have plenty of room to expand when using graphic intensive applications or games.

Using the very slow Western Digital M.2 SATA drive as the OS(C:) boot drive is possible, but not recommended.

How do you want to configure your drives?

Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.

JohnC1000 · Answer

Hi crimson,

Ok I was wondering how two drives were being seen as one in Windows. So one mystery is solved.

Basically I took out those two drives and put in 2 x Western Digital Blue Nano 3D 1TB each drive.

In the BIOS, M.2 slots one and two show as NONE (no drives detected)

The only drive that is detected in the one in SLOT 1 and in the BIOS it shows as "FIRST HDD" WD BLUE.jpg

WD BLUE SSD.jpg

I want the 1TB SLOT 1 drive to be my C drive and the 2nd 1TB SLOT 2 Drive to be my data drive.

I will also have the M.2 2230 drive which is like 400 GB or something like that for additional data, which will be my E drive.

Data transfer rate for the Western Digital Drives is: 560MB/sec READ

I switched from RAID to ACHI for the SATA settings in BIOS. It still doesn't detect the drive in slot 2.

JohnC1000 · Answer

Now see, this is how people learn something new everyday!

I did not know about the new PCIe drives. I was still thinking SATA was the standard. So, yes, it did say that under the drive on the motherboard but seeing I didn't know what it meant, it went right over my head.

I hope I didn't damage the motherboard by inserting a SATA drive in there. What do you think?

crimsom · Answer

Hi @JohnC1000 thank you for sharing images. The BIOS mistakenly thinks the M.2 Western Digital SATA SSD is a 2.5-inch HDD. Very odd, the Alienware m17 R4 does not have a 2.5-inch bay.

A51-06 · Answer

Congrats on getting the problem fixed and great job @crimsom.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @JohnC1000 thank you for sharing BIOS image.  The M.2 PCIe SSD-3 entry says BC711 NVMe SK hynix 512GB. PC/BC711 SK hynix webpage includes the BC711 SK specification.

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m17 R4, not recognizing SSD in slot 2

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