Dell M.2 / NVME Specifications And Upgrade Requirements For Latitude, XPS, Precision Mobile and Optiplex

Justin, these specs are very useful, thank you.

I notice that the HDD/third PCIe interface for the new 7720 has only two lanes available for use with the transposer vs. four lanes for the other two M.2 drives.

I was thinking of using a three drive configuration with RAID 0 or RAID 5, but am wondering if the throughput of the Class 50 drives is sufficiently high that I would be throttling the drives on the four lane interfaces by using a drive on the two lane interface in a striped setup.  Thoughts?

I have an E7470 & I added a Samsung 1TB 960 Pro M.2 NVME drive to it. It is set to RAID on & legacy bios bootup in bios (not set to UEFI). I was able to load Windows 10 & everything is working as normal.

However, I went to set the Bios HDD password under security, & the option is not there so I can enable it for FDE encryption. The actual option  in the bios --> Security --> "Internal HDD-1 Password" is missing.

I have tried every option in the bios (setting admin/system password), changing to UEFI, AHCI, etc..

I am running the latest version of the bios. Running the latest firmware for the Samsung 960.

We have 170+ E7470 units. I have tested this out with 4 other units, with different bios versions. Same issue. I have also tested 4 other Samsung 960 Pro drives. Same issue. Missing option in the bios.

Any ideas?

Thx.

Does Samsung 960 Pro fit in Optiplex 3050 micro form factor? and which parts do I need to mount it? I have a model with hdd caddy only, but with free m.2 key m slot.

Hi! I have Dell Vostro 14 5468. I installed ssd CORSAIR Force MP500 120 ГБ M.2 NVMe PCI Express 3.0x4(www.corsair.com/.../force-series-mp500-120gb-m-2-ssd), but it invisible in BIOS. What i must to do?

According to previous posts in this thread, the Vostro 5468 requires a M.2 SATA drive, not M.2 PCIe.

e.g. amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDJ0 or

amazon.com/dp/B00TGIVZTW or

dell.com/en-us/search?q=a9301055

(sorry - I don't find that one on the euro.dell.com site).

I read it ) But, under Owner's Manual in "Hard drive options" i see "This laptop supports M.2 SATA drive and M.2 NVMe drive." (www.dell.com/.../Hard-drive-options  It's manual error?

> It's manual error?

I have no way to verify or refute that; I'm just a Dell customer.

Hi Justin, I recently bought a E5470 and the manual says PCIe disks can go up to 512 and I was planning on adding a 1T nvme from samsumg a 960 pro.

will this work?

I use Linux  

@JimAtLaw,

I'm wanting to know that as well. I will work internally on your questions and get more information on that. I'll reply back when I know more.

@ItdirectorFLLP,

I've learned the below:

M.2 SATA drives receive hard drive password support from the BIOS

M.2 PCIE drives are not eligible for hard drive password support due to them running on PCIE

Infact, while running a M.2 PCIE drive you can set the SATA operation to 'disable' and the PCIE drive will still function normally. I will have the following document updated to reflect these facts: 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

@Krit1412,

I know so far that you'll need thermal pad part number HM1P2 for the 3050 Micro. This pad likely goes between the drive and the motherboard, like how it does on the 7040 and other models. I will confirm and get back with you.

Further, it's looking like there's no screw required for the end of the M.2 drive. Instead, there's a blue tab that holds it on. Can you open your 3050 and see if your system came with this blue tab?

@DKasparov,

Since the online document contradicts what I've previously stated, I will work internally and get you the correct information. I will reply back when I know more.

@Mscastro,

Dell documents will reflect what Dell supports on any one model. That doesn't mean a certain specification outside of what is listed in our document won't work. Most advice by Dell outside of documentation will come at our best effort.

Dell can never promise that a retail drive will work with any Dell system model. With that said, I know there are several threads out there showing compatibility issues between Dell systems and 960 drives. I've heard of owners having a lot better success when running with a PM961 with their Latitude.

You'd simply have to try it at your own risk basically.

> You'd simply have to try it at your own risk basically.

Worst case scenario, if it doesn't work installed inside your computer and you can't return it,

you can buy an enclosure like:

amazon.com/.../B01C7G8W86

and use it as an external drive.

I bought one of those, installed CentOS on it...  works great even with Secure Boot, and the USB-C/Thunderbolt port is *fast*.

Hi Justin

You mentioned that the Latitude 5580 supports the configuration with an 1x M.2 cache drive and 1x 2.5 inch drive. Unfortunately, i haven’t seen any Information if any additional parts are needed for this configuration. Watching a Video where the internals of the 5580 are shown ( www.youtube.com/watch ) it seems that the M.2 cache drive must be placed in the wwan slot. The space right next to the hard drive seems be blocked / to small and cannot be used. Am i making the correct assumtions?

Forthermore I’d like to know if the “M.2 cache drive” configurations allows the os to be installed only on the ssd and the hard drive is used as an additional drive. Is this possible or can the ssd only be used a cache and not as a separate drive.

Thanks.

I am also looking for the parts needed to install ssd m.2 nvme on my Latitude 5480 but could not find anywhere. Where can I ask for those itens? Dell Brazil says that they cannot help me once they don't have the references - which are all very well described on that post by the way. I'd thank any help =)

I'm trying to get the parts needed to do the properly fastening of my ssd on place but for now i'm improvising with adhesive foam.

Anyway, I'm facing another problem: my ssd is a Samsung 960 evo PCIe NVMe and I found out that my VGA output video just do not working when the ssd pcie is connect (and enabled on BIOS), it just cannot sustain the output video for more than 2s at time.

I did a lot of tests with various displays and cables before decide to put back my Sata HDD and discovery that the VGA backs to work fine and smooth without m.2 pcie :emotion-42: I'm saying that here to ask if somebody is already using a pcie m.2 ssd and had checked if VGA output is still working.

Another fact that I've noticed is that they use the same pci express bus 0, so, maybe because this type of ssd uses 2x more lanes of pcie, the bus has no longer bandwidth to pass analog VGA data through it? :emotion-18: Anyway, if somenone uses that kind of hardware could tell me if everything is ok, I could be abble to define if its a problem exclusive to my machine or maybee a compatible issue not reported yet, related to BIOS firmware or even worse to the mainboard hardware project itself.

Just to register, my bios is at latest version as well as intel hd graphics 630 too.

@OliverNil

What I used for the silicone pad was a couple layers of

amazon.com/dp/B00PZMFV6G

cut a little narrow and short (about 18mm x 75mm) and squished down with thumb pressure before installing the M2 x 5mm screw (spec called for M2 x 3mm, but I got a box of 100 on ebay for a couple $ and the longer - #0 phillips drive - screw fit just fine, else I would've just ground/filed it shorter) to hold the drive in place.

I have enough silicone left to do at least 9 more 80mm M.2 drives if they also require 2 layers.

Don't know what to tell you about the VGA output... did you try DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt instead?  e.g. I would try a USB-C to DP adapter such as amazon.com/dp/B01NBX352B (or USB-C to VGA - amazon.com/dp/B0126ZFTZM ) before springing for a WD15 dock (dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-dock-wd15-with-180w-adapter/apd/450-aeuo/pc-accessories ).

@Darr.Darr

The HDMI output works fine, don't know about other options yet (DP over USB-C) nor USB-C to VGA, but you may agree that is at least curious to use an adapter when the native port is present on the machine..

Anyway, when I use a Sata disk the VGA native port works pretty good. Using PCIe NVMe SSD it just do not work in any way, any Operational System, don't matter the drive I use (tried to use the latest and the same as come from factory - on Windows 10).

It would not be a problem if I know Dell is aware of this behavior and eventually releases a note about that - saying that it will never work or saying that a future BIOS firmware update may fix it. Unfortunately there are several situations that requires me to use this old fashioned port..