Precision T5820 adding SSD hard drive

Question

Hi Community!

I would like to add an SSD to my Precision T5820 to improve the performance of this machine. I would like to boot off this drive.

Dell have been pretty useless so far at advising and supplying the parts, this saga has lasted most of the year I know looking at this forum that others have experienced the same!

I have tried to take this into my own hands and have bought;

- DELL M.2 Flex Bay Module Complete with M.2 module (www.ebay.co.uk/i/224015692598)

- ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB M.2 Gaming Solid State Drive (SSD), black (www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07K1J3C23/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item)

When installed the hard drive is not recognised anywhere. Am I missing a part to make this work successfully? Any ideas on possible solutions?

Thanks in advance for your help

Mark

mazzinia_ · Accepted Answer

Hello,

The 5820/7820/7920 are configured as stock with the Flexbays connected to the onboard sata controller.

As a result, your 5820 can use 4 sata drives in the 4 bays ( to use sas drives, you would have to add a sas controller and plug the cables to it ).

Now, lets speak about the nvme drive you want to install... the kit you bought is to be used if and only if the flexbay is converted to pci-e, and that's done with a different circuit board with the soldered sas connector.

So, to use "that" specific kit, you need to get the kit that converts Bay 1 and 2 to pci-e ( for M.2 use with the kit you bought, or U.2 use with enterprise drives ) and that includes 2 circuits to replace the 2 hotswap sata circuit boards, and cables that go into the pci-e nvme motherboard onboard connector.

Another cheaper and simpler solution is just to put the nvme into either a dell or a 3rd party ( asus by example ) pci-e adapter card that fits into a pci-e slot.

Bottom line : if not configured upon purchase, you need 2 different kits just to put a single nvme unit in one of the front flexbays ( and the 2nd flexbay on the same row would be then limited to be used either with another adapter kit or with an enterprise U.2 drive ). Or you can just use the nvme installed into a pci-e adapter card in a 4x mb slot ( if the adapter is for a single nvme ) or 16x mb slot ( if the adapter is for 4 nvme )

Whoever you spoke with , at dell (prosupport ?!?!?) had access to your full built and should have told you this, instead of partial info ( the adapting kit you bought, that's useless without having the bay converted ) leading to wasting time and money.

Now I don't think you will have too many issues reselling the kit and recovering good part or all the money, but the time is a different issue.

tl_mdx · Accepted Answer

Continuing from the previous post -

If you want to add a 4X adapter card (ASUS shown here ~$55) also, the following picture will help. I have this in PCIE x16 Slot #3.

With both adapters installed - the 1X adapter in PCIEe x4 Slot #2, and the 4X in PCIE x16 Slot #3, BIOS will display all 5 SSDs as show in the second picture below.

NVME 4X adapter loaded with 4 SSDsBIOS displaying all 5 bootable SSDs

Note that the SSD in Slot#2 is the "P0: CT1000P1SSD8" entry, and the other 4 SSDs from the 4X card in Slot #3 are sequentially listed below this.

Hope this helps.

mazzinia_ · Answer

I 'think' it should work. What kind of problem are you experiencing, with the pci-e adapter card ?   Edit : being upgradeable ... yes. But finding parts directly from dell , seems being a bit problematic. On ebay is easier, but the kit that's easy to appear is the one for a 7920, and the 7920 is the machine that has actually videos to guide upgrading the flexbays. The 5820/7820 I fear are not considered as easy to upgrade by a customer, in that sense, since there's a bit to disassemble to swap out the parts. So I think that there are less kits that can float around and it would be more down to some unit being disassembled and sold in pieces. It's more apparent taking a 7820 with a 2nd cpu as example : remove the 2nd cpu card + power cable , remove the metal bracket needed to install a 2nd cpu board, remove the internal system fans etc

marknixon · Answer

Hi,

Thanks so much for your reply!

Yeah I agree, don't know why Dell cant provide this information in a straight forward manner! These machines are sold on the basis of them being upgradable in the first place!

Ok so I will either resell or return the flex bay module.

I actually have a pcie adapter, this was my first strategy but it has also been problematic. Do you know if the mentioned ssd card should work with this machine?

Thanks again for your help!

Mark

Clintlgm · Answer

Your BIOS has to be set to boot PCIe, if you don't have a setting for that you'll need a BIOS update to accomplish this. Not sure on Dell but I have 2 Z97 board that a BIOS update was needed to get the setting to allow PCIe bootability

Also if your trying to create a new install of Windows you'll need the RST driver to see that new m.2 SSD

tl_mdx · Answer

As mentioned, the most cost-effective solution is to get a 1X adapter card ($10- $15) for your single NVME SSD and insert into the PCIE x4 Slot #2.

Pictures below.

Dell 5820 PCIe SlotsNVME 1X adapter for PCIe slotNVME 1X adapter with SSD

In the next post, I also show a 4X adapter, and how it all looks in BIOS when both the 1X and 4X adapters are present.

ainas96 · Answer

What did you change in BIOS, so they all are seen as bootable media? I tried different combinations but can see any SSD; however, the workstation boots from SSD (I need to remove HDD).

In addition, I have three HDDs installed in that workstation, but just one can be seen. Any suggestions on this issue?

Dylanear · Answer

In my particular situation I had installed Windows on a U.2 NVMe drive I had in one of the standard caddies, but with the NMVe backplane installed. But since I wanted to use all the hotswap caddies for a SATA array in the future and put the 2.5" U.2 drive into a 5.25" to 2.5" adapter in the 5.25" bay, got an inexpensive, simple passive PCIe card with 4 U.2/NVMe SFF ports and put that in slot one. I have the latest firmware as far as I know, that was available to me in the standard Windows Update after I did a fresh install of Windows 10 pro USB stick made with the Windows Installation Media Creation Tool.

There is no option for me to boot off PCIe. I can enable to disable the MiniSAS ports and/or the Intel Volume Mangement features. I found I had to disable the Volume management to boot from that U.2 drive in the caddy. But after I connected the drive onto the generic PCIe U.2 card with a standard SFF to U.2 cable (needed to connect that cable's power connector to the SATA power connector by the 5.25" bay.) then the only indication I had a PCIe/NVMe device in the machine in the BIOS was in the System Configuration page Slot 1 showed "Mass Storage Controller". Presumably because that controller is actually in the U.2 drive, when I only had the card in the slot, and no drive connected there was ZERO indication that adapter was installed.

When I go to the UEFI Boot menu, it simply shows "Master Boot Record" as the only option to boot from. No place to say otherwise. No indication which drive or connection that MBR was found on. Not ideal. BUT it does boot just fine! Now, I'm not sure what would happen if I had a SATA drive connected that also had a MBR and/or Windows installation on it? Then it might show both in the UEFI Boot menu or something?

But yes, it seems simple, generic PCIe NVMe cards (Either U.2 of M.2) do seem to work just fine. Now Dell mentions an option card for the 5820, a 4 slot M.2 card. Now THAT might show up in the BIOS specifically as a boot drive option? I don't know. I have no idea what that card costs or how it would compare to any random generic PCIe NVMe card?

This is the card I used. Simple, elegant, cheap. Said it would take 2+ weeks to come from China, but it showed up in less than a week I believe.

https://www.newegg.com/p/17Z-012A-00013?Item=9SIB2NHHWP3528

Chino de Oro · Answer

Hello @ainas96 , from the screenshots of other member, legacy boot was enable. If you are able to boot now, I'd be cautious as some change in system BIOS may cause BSOD.

If I may ask, what is your goal of storage setup and how do you connect your 3 hard drives currently. Which one is the one can be seen? Do you have them on Asus adapter card as pictured?

ainas96 · Answer

Correct, I have enabled Legacy boot. I'm using ASUS 4X adapter, but only one SSD is installed, and the OS is on. After I removed the original HDD with OS, the workstation began "to see" and boot from SSD. I can see the SDD on the boot menu (F12) and both HDDs (I needed to format the HDD with the original OS). However, BIOS doesn't show the SDD or HDDs.

Chino de Oro · Answer

To see the list of drives as other member post, you will need legacy boot mode + disable secure boot + enable legacy option ROMs.

To allow all SSD drives connecting to the system, the Asus adapter needed to be installed on slot 2 or slot 4 counting from the CPU. I have a feeling that you might use slot 5, which is wired as x4.

To take advantage of storage option for 5820 workstation, I suggest to add the following:

If your system has Xeon cpu and added option for nvme flex bay, it allows top (2) bay to use nvme ssd. The default setup just came with one carrier (66XHV), then you can add either a U.2 drive or an nvme ssd with a U.2 adapter similar like the picture below.

U.2 Icy dock.jpg

The system has 6 SATA ports for hard drives and 2 for optical drives. You can use 2 for SATA hard drives in the lower flex bay and 4 via adapter in the 5.25" bay, they are all hot swap capable. You still have the extra ports for slim optical drive. I use the adapter from Icy Dock as pictured below.

Icy dock.jpg

The PCIe slots have bifurcation natively and manage by 3 VMD controllers. You can install 4 nvme ssd drives to slot 4 (and 2 nvme drives on slot 1) using Asus hyper adapter as pictured below.

Asus hyper.jpg

If your system has Intel core X cpu, the options will be less because those PCIe lanes are direct connect to CPU so it will affect by the capability of the processor being installed.

ainas96 · Answer

After multiple attempts to figure out the reason for that issue, I can finally say that the main problem was the SSD card. I was using SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB (SAMSUNG  950 and 960 are ok to be used as a bootable drive). All issues were gone when I installed WD_BLACK SN770 NVMe SSD 2TB.

ainas96 · Answer

I wanted to move OS to SSD. Currently, I connected all three HDDs directly to the motherboard (I do not plan to use the RAID card). I would like to upgrade both 2TB Dell HDDs to 14TB or 16TB HDDs (any suggestions on this upgrade?)

Chino de Oro · Answer

Dell specs usually listed the storage size they tested and supported. In real world, larger sizes have been validated by users so you won't have any problem using 14TB or 16TB HDDs. However, system settings needed to be set for compatibility. To have over 4 primary partitions or over 2TB size limit, you need to enable UEFI for GPT partitioning.

Always make sure to have your system backup before making any changes.

Precision Fixed Workstations

Precision T5820 adding SSD hard drive

Was this post helpful?