Proper software/approach to replace HDD with PCIe m.2 SSD ?
I've ordered ten Dell 3050 Optiplex computers with Win 10 pro. They came with 1 TB HDD's as a default - great deal through Provantage. When they arrive I'd like to swap out all the HDD's for THIS speedy little (256 GB) Samsung m.2 drive.
Suggestions for what's the best approach to this project? Bare metal restore approach... True Image? What about the efficiency (not to mention software costs) given the quantity of computers I'm working with?
Any way to reduce the time involved (copy once, write over/over to the remaining computers)? Any issue with windows licensing going that route?
Since the starting drive is 1 TB, but obviouly the space I have (and need) is much smaller - any issues with partitioning?
Could I just use True Image to clone the drives? I did this once before (True Image 2014 came free with a crucial SSD I picked up) along with a cable to connect the two for the process. Though this new (m.2) drive will not be going back into the location of the existing HDD... change of settings needed in the computer?
I'd tempted to leave well enough alone (keep the stock drives) but knowing the speed potential of such a drive switch is VERY enticing !
THANKS for any suggestions/tips!
GatrNol, you can do what you are asking but if using Acronis True Image to do this, then the recommended method would be to first check that Windows 10 Pro is activated on all 10 of your Dell Optiplex computers - this will help you avoid any licensing issues with activation as this is typically based on the hardware signature of the system where Windows is activated.
First, please create the Acronis bootable Rescue Media - ideally you should create the WinPE version of this using the Windows 10 ADK - this will require that you have ATIH 2017 installed on at least one computer to do this. Test that the Rescue Media will boot correctly and will see your 1TB HDD drive, plus if possible test that it can also see one of the 256GB M.2 SSD drives when installed.
Next, I would recommend making a 'Disk & Partitions' backup of the installed 1TB HDD drive to an external USB HDD - this is your safeguard against any problems and gives you a means of recovery back to step 1.
Install the new M.2 SSD drive and disconnect the 1TB HDD then boot from the Acronis Rescue Media with your external USB HDD connected, and then restore the backup from the HDD to the new SSD drive - you should select to allow Acronis to automatically resize the restored data to fit on the smaller SSD.
Shutdown the computer, disconnect the USB drive, boot into the BIOS settings and select Windows Boot Manager in the EFI BIOS Boot priority settings and test that you can boot successfully from the restored SSD drive. At that point you could reconnect the HDD if required and format this to use as a second drive.
Thanks Steve - you're a wealth of information! I see you posted to the duplicate thread - I created that one (acutally both this one and it) as a shotgun approach, hoping that someone in at least one of the forums would be able to lend a hand. I do, though, understand how that can end up bogging things down.
>> What about doing a clean install of Win 10 Pro onto the SSD?
>> Would I need to still, first, get the original OS activated with the stock HDD in place?
>> Where could I find the individual windows activation codes for each computer? They used to have nice little stickers, but in my experience those are long gone!
>> Would the install routine find/recognize the new drive (if I disconnected the HDD)?
GatrNol, if you do a clean install of Win 10 onto the SSD that would obviously work but then you will either need to be doing so on hardware that has previously been activated for Windows 10 or else be able to enter a valid COA license key unless you have a Volume License agreement to use.
Once your hardware has been activated from the stock HDD then you can reinstall the same Windows 10 OS version and it will be activated based on the hardware signature, i.e. motherboard, CPU, MAC address.
Unless you have been supplied with individual Windows 10 COA stickers or license keys, then all licensing is done based on hardware signature - I haven't seen any such stickers for some time now.
If you are doing a clean install, then it should be able to find your new M.2 SSD drive and offer this as the Windows install target drive.
GatrNol,
Question, I find no less than 3 models of the 3050 Optiplex. One is described as a Tower Small Form Factor. Another is described as a Micro desktop, yet another is an All in One design.
All of these offer M.2 slots however, the Tower Small Form Factor version only has 1 M.2 slot and it is for a WiFi NIC card only - cannot be used for storage. Can you confirm which version of this model you are getting?
It's their desktop/ "mini tower" (MT) version -- more specifically: Manufacturer Part# K01HD
You caused me to do a double take! It would seem that there are inconsistencies across their site. I've also found lots of references online which don't properly indicate that the USB 3.0 ports are indeed 3.1 gen 1. For $610, it's decent starting point!
Fortunately, in the OptiPlex Tower Owner's Manual (page 18/19), they describe the process of removing/installing the "optional M.2 PCIe SSD".
Then again... they're supposed to arrive Friday, along with the M.2 card I ordered through Amazon... so I'll know a lot more then. :)
GatrNol, if you do a clean install of Win 10 onto the SSD that would obviously work but then you will either need to be doing so on hardware that has previously been activated for Windows 10 or else be able to enter a valid COA license key unless you have a Volume License agreement to use.
Once your hardware has been activated from the stock HDD then you can reinstall the same Windows 10 OS version and it will be activated based on the hardware signature, i.e. motherboard, CPU, MAC address.
Unless you have been supplied with individual Windows 10 COA stickers or license keys, then all licensing is done based on hardware signature - I haven't seen any such stickers for some time now.
If you are doing a clean install, then it should be able to find your new M.2 SSD drive and offer this as the Windows install target drive.
Steve, would downloading the OS directly from Microsoft via THIS method be the way to go? If so, the last part of the "things you'll need" segment caught my eye:
Before you begin, here are some things you’ll need:
- A PC with a reliable Internet connection. The download is about 4 GB, and the time it takes to download it will depend on your Internet connection.
- A USB flash drive or DVD. A blank USB flash drive or DVD with at least 4 GB of available drive space. Using a DVD requires a DVD burner and software on the PC you’re using to create the media and a DVD player on the PC where you want to install Windows.
- A product key. The 25-character product key.
... Again, I guess I'll know a lot more on Friday!
THANKS
After reading/searching through the questions/answers for the SSD on Amazon, I found that Samsung provides Data Migration Software as a free download.
This might just be the easiest way to approach my situation, providing it actually works! As with many things, there almost always seems to be surprises, or let's say "learning experiences"!
GatrNol,
Glad I got you researching this. When looking at the insructions for installing the M.2 drive did you see a reference to size, hopefully 2280 as that is the size (length) of the drive you purchased. It should be but there are different sizes of them and some manufacuters opt for them.
You will see a speed increase with the M.2 drives but not what is advertised. The drive you purchased is an NVMe variant of the PCIe based SSD's. The only way to get top performance out of those drives is to run them with the SATA controller set to RAID mode even though you will not be using or creating a RAID array with only a single drive. The reason for this is due to drivers. The Intel drive controller in the computer uses an Intel RAID driver to achieve maximum performance with these drives due to bandwidth requirements at the higher data rates. You can try the Samsung migration software to do the transfer but it may not work if you set the SATA drive controller in the bios to RAID mode. Standard True Image Recovery Media even WinPE based will not work either.
The MVP's here have developed a tool that can build a WinPE version of True Image and allows for the proper RAID driver injection into the media that will get this to work for you. Link to that along with instructions for use (a MUST READ) is below:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/127281
Be aware that it is likely that you will loose functionality of the existing SATA port in the machine when you install the M.2 drive as the M.2 connector whares bandwidth with an SATA port in order to function so it is one or the other.
As for isntalling a new Windows 10 version you can certainly do that. Most of the sites selling Windows 10 are for the product key with a link to download the software.
If you go this route you will need to have the Intel RAID drivers available on a USB flash drive so that you can add them during the Windows installation. If you do not do that then you will not be able to install Windows to the drive because the Windows installer will not recgnize the drive is installed unless of course you leave the SATA controller mode set to AHCI mode but doing that will rob the drive of running at it's full potential again due to the bandwidth requirement of the NVMe standard.
GatrNol,
Glad I got you researching this. When looking at the insructions for installing the M.2 drive did you see a reference to size, hopefully 2280 as that is the size (length) of the drive you purchased. It should be but there are different sizes of them and some manufacuters opt for them.
You will see a speed increase with the M.2 drives but not what is advertised. The drive you purchased is an NVMe variant of the PCIe based SSD's. The only way to get top performance out of those drives is to run them with the SATA controller set to RAID mode even though you will not be using or creating a RAID array with only a single drive. The reason for this is due to drivers. The Intel drive controller in the computer uses an Intel RAID driver to achieve maximum performance with these drives due to bandwidth requirements at the higher data rates. You can try the Samsung migration software to do the transfer but it may not work if you set the SATA drive controller in the bios to RAID mode. Standard True Image Recovery Media even WinPE based will not work either.
The MVP's here have developed a tool that can build a WinPE version of True Image and allows for the proper RAID driver injection into the media that will get this to work for you. Link to that along with instructions for use (a MUST READ) is below:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/127281
Be aware that it is likely that you will loose functionality of the existing SATA port in the machine when you install the M.2 drive as the M.2 connector whares bandwidth with an SATA port in order to function so it is one or the other.
As for isntalling a new Windows 10 version you can certainly do that. Most of the sites selling Windows 10 are for the product key with a link to download the software.
If you go this route you will need to have the Intel RAID drivers available on a USB flash drive so that you can add them during the Windows installation. If you do not do that then you will not be able to install Windows to the drive because the Windows installer will not recgnize the drive is installed unless of course you leave the SATA controller mode set to AHCI mode but doing that will rob the drive of running at it's full potential again due to the bandwidth requirement of the NVMe standard.
Thanks for taking the time to lay this out. I've started looking at the link you provided. I'm sure it's all pretty straight forward for those with a fair measure of experience - but it looks like it might give me a headache, lol !
It indicates that I'd need to have a copy of True Image installed on the target computer. If I'm doing this on ten computers, will I need 10 copies of the software? I have not wrapped my head around all the steps involved yet. This could either be a very lockstep approach to meet my goals, or something that devolves into many hours of additional research and scrambling. It sounds like plenty of people are thrilled with the results, but obviously a few have encountered some challenges.
If it’s a basically set up and go, then it’s time well spent initially. Alternatively, I could keep 1 computer out of use while I get the flow worked out with it. In reality, I’ve got a week or two to implement the new network (also have a Dell T330 en route), but even then I only require 9 computers of the 10 – basically a spare.
You indicated that the drive, without taking the RAID approach, will bring with it a speed increase. Would that increase be roughly equivalent to that from a non-M.2 SSD, or something beyond that?
Thanks again !
GatrNol,
The instructions for creating the WinPE build a boot medium which is not machine specific.
Have you decided if you are going to install fresh copies of Windows 10 on these machines or are you going to attempt to backup each machine Windows installation and then retore that backup to the new M.2 drives? Procedures will be different depending on your decision.
As for speed it breaks down like this, the machines will come with mechanical hard drives installed. If you move from mechanical drive to solid state drive (SSD) you will see and increase in performance. SATA3 standard maximum bandwidth is 600MBps. Reality is that at times you might see 550MBps data transfer with SATA3. The M.2 drives are PCIe based and use PCIe lanes for data transfer. The drive you have selected uses Gen 3 X4 lanes have a maximum bandwidth of 4GBps or 4000MBps. Reality is a maximum of around 3800MBps. These are relative numbers and real world will be quite different.
There are relationships between CPU, PCIe channels, and chipsets that all effect real performance. In general a PCIe based SSD will outperform an SATA SSD, and SATA SSD will outperform a mechanical SATA HDD. Your results will be dependent on all hardware involved in the equation and ultimately the data which is transfered over that hardware.
An NVME PCIe SSD when transfering large files that consist of many 64k chunks of data can easily reach the 3800MBps limit. Sustaining that for extended time periods however will prove problematic due to thermal throttling. This is however not a concern in 99% of daily computing chores. Those whom routinely work with huge video files for example can run into to this but for the rest of us it is not an issue.
If you decide to clean install Windows 10 on these machines to PCIe M.2 drives what I believe you will find after looking at the manual you provided is that all you will really need is to have the Intel RAID controller drivers in inf/sys format copied to a flash drive so that you can point the Windows installer at them during the Windows install. Once you do that Windows will be abel to find the drive and install to it correctly for you to achieve maximum performance from the drive on your hardware.
...
If you decide to clean install Windows 10 on these machines to PCIe M.2 drives what I believe you will find after looking at the manual you provided is that all you will really need is to have the Intel RAID controller drivers in inf/sys format copied to a flash drive so that you can point the Windows installer at them during the Windows install. Once you do that Windows will be abel to find the drive and install to it correctly for you to achieve maximum performance from the drive on your hardware.
Thanks for the "101" reasoning and explanation on the drives - that's very helpful.
The clean install appears the one with the least potential for pitfalls. It looks like we're good to go regarding the M.2 slot/size (see attached) as FedEx just brought me an early Christmas (pile of boxes). Should I still get the computer up/running/activated first for purposes of the license?
Regarding the controller drivers - where do I locate those, and at what point will the windows installer prompt for that info?
If I was a techie by trade, I'd probably jump into this with both feet. Instead, I'm a solo dentist, who would like to handle as much of this as I easily can without putting additional credentials next to my name! I will throw out there, however, that I was a subscriber to BYTE magazine during its first year and my first computer was a TRS-80... followed by 386/16 computer which had an entire 100 MB hard drive and 2 MB RAM. I thought that was really something back then !! I dabbled in programming (only BASIC and TUTOR) in the late 70's at FSU as a teen, thanks to access through my fathers position there. Card readers meant something entirely different back then!
THANKS for your continued contributions to my limited tech knowledge!
For drivers go to Dell Support http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/?~ck=mn
Enter your machine serial number then locate the drivers and find those for Win 10 X64 Intel IRST. These may come as exe. files in which case you will need to extract the drivers out using 7zip or something like that.
When you run the windows installer it will not find a drive to install to as long as you remove the existing drive and install the new M.2 drive first.
You will see and option to Add drivers on the Windows install screen, click on that and you will be given a option to browse to or specify whee drivers are located. Do that and the installer will install the drivers and you then will see your M.2 drive as a selection for installation.
For drivers go to Dell Support http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/?~ck=mn
Enter your machine serial number then locate the drivers and find those for Win 10 X64 Intel IRST. These may come as exe. files in which case you will need to extract the drivers out using 7zip or something like that.
When you run the windows installer it will not find a drive to install to as long as you remove the existing drive and install the new M.2 drive first.
You will see and option to Add drivers on the Windows install screen, click on that and you will be given a option to browse to or specify whee drivers are located. Do that and the installer will install the drivers and you then will see your M.2 drive as a selection for installation.
I was able to do a clean install and utilized the drivers you suggested - and the SSD card was located.
The READ performance is markedly better than that on my office desktop (regular) SSD. However, the WRITE numbers have taken a real hit. Any thoughts on this?
In the last post I tried to upload and post the two images together within the body - but could not get the INSERT FILE feature to work, nor upload the second image.
Thus I tried to just attach them both - but, each time trying to attach the second, it crashed. So, I'll attach the second image here.
GatrNol,
Can you post a screenshot of Device Manager showing what drivers Windows is using for the drives? I bet that Windows is using its own native drivers for your drives. Before you say "But I loaded the drivers in Windows installer" what happesn is that you provided the drivers for Windows installer to do it thing not for the OS to use after installation is complete.
If Device Manger shows that default Windows drivers are in use and I think that it will, you can update the drivers to using Device Manager for the OS by pointing to them. Your benchmarks should improve by doing so.
Additionally, Samsung provides drivers for these NVMe drives which tend to increase performance above the Intel versions. Look for these drivers at the link below
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html
GatrNol,
Can you post a screenshot of Device Manager showing what drivers Windows is using for the drives? I bet that Windows is using its own native drivers for your drives. Before you say "But I loaded the drivers in Windows installer" what happesn is that you provided the drivers for Windows installer to do it thing not for the OS to use after installation is complete.
If Device Manger shows that default Windows drivers are in use and I think that it will, you can update the drivers to using Device Manager for the OS by pointing to them. Your benchmarks should improve by doing so.
Additionally, Samsung provides drivers for these NVMe drives which tend to increase performance above the Intel versions. Look for these drivers at the link below
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html
You hit it.
The driver for the drive was the (standard) 2006 Microsoft version. In the install guide (Samsung site) for their driver, it indicated to check under "Storage Controllers", which I did, again - old versions.
I tried running the .exe file from Samsung but it said that it could not find the Samsung NVMe ! There was reference in the guide to some settings I needed to check - where you couldn't run the program if the PCH Configuration Mode had RAID enabled. At any rate, tried some different BIOS settings - ended up having to reinstall windows (it didn't ask for the Intel drivers this time), and upon reboot I was able to install the program successfully (could then see it under Storage Controller, complete with its 2017 driver).
A definite improvement !
DARN -- trying to upload images and getting error messages again (they're about 4 MB each... can't even attach one - and I thought it indicated the max was 15 MB) !!
Here's the error message I get when trying to attach images (these are ~4MB). Does it have something to do with my limited presence on the boards, or are there issues in general with posting photos inline or as attachments?
An HTTP error 0 occurred. <br />/comment-upload/js
Problems with upload side of things occur at times and is probably at fault here.
So do have your machine set with SATA mode as RAID or AHCI?
When I did the initial windows install (and installed the Intel driver so that the system could see the SSD for the first time) I was not given any choices, and I suppose it went to RAID due to the driver... ??
When I went into BIOS to eval (when the Samsung driver file wouldn't install) I found some setting with three options: One was (nothing or such?), the others were ACHI and RAID. RAID was selected. Is that were the "PCH Configuration" is set (What's PCH)? The tech support at "Pro Support Plus" at Dell was not very helpful... but at least she didn't speak with an accent -- which is helpful at least from a comprehension standpoint.
Since RAID was selected, and it wasn't working, I switched to ACHI and it gave me a warning about the system perhaps not booting or something. It was right. When I went back in I selected the top (nothing?) option, and that time the system REALLY did not respond - and I reinstalled Windows.
After it finished, I was able to run the Samsung driver program as I mentioned, without a hitch... ODD
Not sure if I happened upon things out of luck (to a certain extent, I'd say yep!), but since I have this to compete on 9 other workstations, I'd like to have a recipie for success - but will eventually get there with trial and error apparently !
THANKS
You should try using Crystal Disk Mark 5 as your benchmark. It is my favorite. It allows the user to setup number of passes for each test, test file size, and most importantly CPU Thread number and Que depth.
I have attached screenshots of a Smasung MS951 NVMe PCIe drive which is the predecessor of your drive running 5 pass test of 1GB size at 4 CPU threads and Que depths of 64 and 128. When Que depth is increased beyond the normal 32 is when these drives really shine. Of course these are synthetic test but still show impressive numbers. By the way max advertised read speed of the SM951 drives are 2200MBps with writes of 1500MBps.
PCH - Platform Controller Hub - replaced north and south bridge in modern day computers.
Your manual shwos that default SATA mode is set at RAID thus is why I said your install of Windows would need the Intel RAID driver in order to run. I would think that you now are using AHCI mode but you now have the dedicated Samsung drivers installed for the PCH controller.
Quite frankly I would leave it like that. I have found that the Samsung drivers work better than the Intel version anyway but you must have a Samsung drive to use them on.
If you upgrade the rest of the machines just change the PCH controller mode to ACHI prior to the Windows install then after Windows is installed run the Samsung driver .exe install file and you are good to go!
PCH - Platform Controller Hub - replaced north and south bridge in modern day computers.
Your manual shwos that default SATA mode is set at RAID thus is why I said your install of Windows would need the Intel RAID driver in order to run. I would think that you now are using AHCI mode but you now have the dedicated Samsung drivers installed for the PCH controller.
Quite frankly I would leave it like that. I have found that the Samsung drivers work better than the Intel version anyway but you must have a Samsung drive to use them on.
If you upgrade the rest of the machines just change the PCH controller mode to ACHI prior to the Windows install then after Windows is installed run the Samsung driver .exe install file and you are good to go!
Thanks for your help along the way. I was able to get the other 9 computers updated between yesterday and today - went like clockwork!!
Great, glad to hear that!