I have this exact problem too, my additional question is:

Can the motherboard on the XPS 8930 use a NVMe Gen 4 SSD at Gen 4 speed or would it be just using it at Gen 3 speed?  If the motherboard can only use Gen 3 speed then buying a Gen 4 SSD would be more cost with no benefit.

Thanks,

GyroscopicEddie

I believe that a Gen 4 M2 SSD working in a Gen 3 slot will run at Gen 3 speeds and only use two channels, but it will work. What I don't know is if one has to change the BIOS settings (RAID to ACHI) for a Dell Gen 4 card, like OEMs, and if those settings are changed will that affect other disks in the PC.

I've just bought 1TB Crucial P310 PCIe Gen4 NVMe 2280 M.2 SSD, which should arrive on Friday. I hope to install it in my XPS 8930 over the weekend. 

If you can wait that long, I'll let you know whether the bios setting needs to be changed to ACHI.

(I figured out that chipset and processor only support PCIe 3.0, so it will only run at Gen 3 speeds, but I don't think you can buy Gen 3 ones anymore anyway.)

Hi ARBO

I have just gone through the process successfully with my new Crucial P310 1TB SSD. My system booted up without any need to change anything in the BIOS. My system remains on the RAID setting.

The steps were:

1) Clone C: onto the new drive which was in a drive enclosure (using Acronis True Image downloaded from crucial support pages). This took maybe 30 or 40 minutes. The old drive was 256GB.

2) Switch off system, disconnect everything, open up the computer

3) Swap over the old C: for the new drive. The hardest part was getting the small screw back in to the hole, I dropped it a few times.

4) Close up, reconnect everything, switch on

5) wait with the spinning dots for a little longer than comfortable considering I'd just changed some hardware

6) Come back a few moment later to the usual log in screen, log in as normal

7) Look around the file system and things to check the drive says 912 GB in file explorer.

(Obviously, follow a youtube video if you're in need detailed instructions or the instructions on the crucial webpage)

I downloaded a disk benchmark utility and found that my C: drive is operating at 3464 MB/s which is close to the 3500 MB/s limit for Gen 3.

So, all successful as far as I can see.

Good luck

GyroscopicEddie

I just finished an upgrade from spinning hard disk to Gen 3 NVMe, using a Sandisk SSD 1 TB.  Based on the instructions from others here on the Dell community, I did switch from RAID SATA to AHCI.  I haven't switched back, because the computer is now working very well with the Sandisk SSD.

@GyroscopicEddie​ 

Hi GyroscopicEddie,

I want to say 'thank you'. I purchased the same Crucial P310 1TB SSD and cloned my C drive to it, on my Dell XPS 8930, using your instructions, as my original 256 GB SSD had become full, and the process worked perfectly. The only problem I had was that my original C drive was so full that there wasn't room for the Acronis True Image to install, but I cleared enough for a successful installation. I now have a C drive with plenty of spare capacity and no more warning signs. Thank you again.

Best wishes,

Chris