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Optiplex 9020 NVMe-aware?
I am considering getting a new NVMe M.2 SSD like the Samsung 950 PRO and a PCI Express M.2 adapter card (something like this) and using it as a boot drive in my Optiplex 9020. I understand that this requires support in the BIOS. Is the Optiplex 9020 BIOS capable of this? Does it require a BIOS update?
rboynton
2 Posts
4
September 11th, 2016 19:00
Really old post, but thought I would throw my 2 cents in. I have a 9020 and purchased a Toshiba OCZ NVMe drive. Box is running on the latest A16 BIOS. Unplugged my current SATA HD's and installed the new card. Installed Windows 10 to the NVMe using a flashdrive. After the first reboot during the Windows installation, got a message saying no hard drive was found. Going into BIOS, boot devices the NVMe was not listed. Clicked add device and not system files were found. Looks like that MB does not permit booting to the new drive.
I left the drive in and reconnected my SATA drives. Windows sees the new drive, and I can use it, but just cannot boot to it. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the drive. Hope this helps.
jokerone
1 Message
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February 10th, 2016 11:00
I would like to know exactly the same thing
storagejohn
13 Posts
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September 22nd, 2017 06:00
Awesome, so i can use it as datastore and nested VMware .
Pennstater2013
1 Message
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July 29th, 2018 06:00
I know this is an old post but I was wondering if any of the BIOS updates released by Dell since this topic's original date may have enabled this feature?
I see that the latest BIOS version is now A23 released early in July 2018. I read through the release notes but didn't see anything in the way of this feature being added (I doubt it has; I think these BIOS updates are just bug fix type releases, but thought I'd check anyway).
apsoprano
1 Message
0
October 27th, 2018 16:00
A new BIOS revision is available and I was wondering if someone tried the trick again.. I bought this M.2 SSD to PCIe NVMe AHCI card to use it on my i7 optiplex 9020 ... ready to pull the trigger on a Samsung 970 PRO.. but not sure if it will support it..
rguisinger
2 Posts
2
November 4th, 2018 12:00
Just tried - no worky, shows up as mass storage device, but cannot select as a boot method
Hot-Dell
5 Posts
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November 17th, 2018 13:00
Same here even after a UEFI/BIOS update to A24 (Nov. 2, 2018 release).
System Information shows my device only as "SLOT4= Mass Storage" and not as a bootable device -- even with the UEFI Boot Option enabled, and with or without Secure Boot enabled. I would like to see Dell update the next UEFI/BIOS to include support for bootable M.2 drives. I tried it with both an M.2 NVMe SSD and an older M.2 AHCI SSD. I would think that the AHCI blade would work even in Legacy BIOS mode, but it did not.
Just last month (Oct. 2018 as of this writing), even Apple updated its Boot ROM to support NVMe drives on my nine-year-old Mac Pro! Dell should do the same with a firmware update to their older machines.
hope_glory
2 Posts
0
July 7th, 2019 14:00
I'm running an Optiplex 990 and WD Black 500GB NVMe PCIe WDS500G2X0C with a PCIe adapter along with BIOS A24 and am getting read/write speeds of 1632 MB/s / 1496 MB/s. The computer recognizes the drive for reading and writing but I cannot boot from that drive (BIOS doesn't recognize the drive in UEFI mode, or in legacy mode).
After spending a week researching options, including using alternative boot software that boots from USB and other options such as modifying the BIOS with third party tools, I've come to the conclusion that modifying the BIOS is the easiest and most effective method but it risks bricking the computer. For this reason, I echo Hot-Dell's request to release an official A25 BIOS update to include an UEFI boot option for NVMe PCIe SSDs. Thank you!
Dell.uded
1 Message
0
July 18th, 2019 22:00
I also echo Hot-Dell's request to release an official A25 BIOS update to include an UEFI boot option for NVMe PCIe SSDs. In fact it's just like a 'boot from SCSI' option in BIOS (which used to be quite common) only this time the 'SCSI' is an NVMe SSD.
Thank you!
nich0las
7 Posts
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September 29th, 2019 00:00
Techgee
2 Intern
2 Intern
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590 Posts
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October 5th, 2019 08:00
Since 9020 BIOS support for UEFI NVMe booting appears to be broken, you could try what works on older Legacy BIOS systems without UEFI. It took me quite a while to figure out how to do this on my 10 year old Dell (which obviously doesn't have UEFI), but I'm currently booting Windows 10 on a M.2 NVMe SSD.
The trick with the 9020 is likely to set the BIOS options "Advance Boot Options" to Legacy, turn on "Enable Legacy Option ROMs", AND use a M.2 NVMe SSD with a Legacy Option ROM. The dilemma is there are only a handful of M.2 NVMe SSDs that have this. I only know of 2 with reasonably good performance:
Samsung 950 PRO - can be found used on places like ebay, note SM951 will NOT work for this
Plextor M8Pe - available new on places like Amazon, note M9Pe and M8Se will NOT work for this
Additionally, in Legacy mode, you'll need to go against what's commonly recommended and initialize the M.2 NVMe SSD as MBR, and NOT GPT. (If the SSD is already initialized, Windows 10 Disk Management -> right-click on left side of disk -> Properties -> Volumes can be used to check this.)
Both of the above SSDs boot in my 10 year old Dell (although the M8PeGN 1TB paused for about 2 minutes before proceeding with boot, which may be a problem specific to my system or because I didn't update its firmware from 1.04 to latest 1.06).
Anyway one of the above may be worth a try - I'd buy SSD from somewhere where it can be returned in case it doesn't work out.
hope_glory
2 Posts
0
August 27th, 2020 13:00
Thanks atnalta. I'll try that.
atnalta
1 Message
1
August 27th, 2020 13:00
Hi - I solved my issue with booting from a USB drive installed with UEFI-DUET. After that, I can install Windows 10 and boot from it. The only requirement is to leave the USB drive in the PC and boot from it every time. Hope it helps...
P.S. This is the link for creating a bootable UEFI-DUET usb drive...
https://www.win-raid.com/t3286f50-Guide-NVMe-boot-for-systems-with-legacy-BIOS-and-UEFI-board-DUET-REFIND.html
Maggew.com
4 Posts
0
October 11th, 2020 00:00
Thanks for this here share. I'm using a Optiplex 990 (on A24 bios) and will be plugging in an nvme M.2 drive with a PCE adapter... hope everything is smooth .
Emperor Crusher
11 Posts
0
March 11th, 2021 08:00
To those still wondering about booting an Optiplex 9020 from NVMe drive:
I purchase different models of Optiplex Micro PCs from eBay for refurb and sale to my customers. I purchased an Optiplex 5060M with a SK Hynix SC308 NVMe SSD. The drive is keyed for B&M. While the Optiplex 5060M takes M keyed drives, the Optiplex 9020M takes B keyed drives. Since the SK Hynix SC308 is keyed to both B & M, I put the drive into the Optiplex 9020M and it booted to Windows 10 with no other special help. There was no USB drive and no SATA drive. The BIOS is A19, the most recent version from 2019.