Dell i7 7700 M.2 slot

[beckanator]

I own a Dell i7 7700 2 in 1 with the standard 1 G HDD "spin" drive. I bought the laptop new, and it's only three months old. The laptop started doing "weird" things over the last month, like shutting down abruptly by itself. It then, on occasion, would restart by itself. Then this behavior became exacerbated whenever I flipped the screen over to use it in tablet mode. It would take me a number of tries to get it to restart. This progressed to shutting down and not restarting almost completely.

I was able to get it restarted and ran Dell diagnostics on it today, and it says my hard drive does not pass the test. One click button and Dell is sending me a replacement (I'm still under warranty).

I want to now upgrade it to with an SSD. I was wondering if anyone knows (I searched to no avail) if the new Samsung 960 pro M.2 will work and if it will operate without speed limitations?

I also own and a Dell XPS 8900 and discovered the M.2. slot was single lane, limiting the slot to way slower speeds. The workaround was to get a PCIe x 4 slot adapter to get the full performance. I have the adapter (Wings PX1), the 960 Pro and other "goodies" (new power supply, Nvidia 1080 Founders Edition) but have yet to install on my XPS (I know what's holding me up?)

Crucial has an M.2 that is compatible, but out of stock at this time - MX200 CT9509646 (500GB M.2/NGFF (2280) Single Sided internal SSD • SATA 6.0Gb/s • 555 MB/s Read, 500 MB/s Write).

The Samsung Pro is blazingly fast 3,200MB/s Seq. Read/1,900MB/s Seq. Write for the 960 Pro 1 TB model.

So, to repeat my question, is the new Samsung 960 pro M.2 SSD compatible and will it operate in the Inspiron i7 7700 without speed limitations?

Thank you all in advance for your input and suggestions!

 

[Barty1884]

Looking at the spec sheet here: http/www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/Inspiron-17-7778-2-in-1-laptop/inspiron-17-7778-laptop-SetupAndSpecs/Storage?guid=GUID-31AEE62E-F2EA-4348-8CFA-765DADEEFB1A&lang=en-us

Bot h the M.2 and 2.5" drives are SATA based. The 960 Pro is a PCIe based M.2 SSD so no, it won't work.

Desktop M.2 can (fairly commonly) accommodate PCIe and SATA drives in the same slot - but not always, my Z97-A from ASUS is PCIe only...... Laptops are much more commonly one or the other. In this case, you've got a SATA M.2

 

[beckanator]

Looking at the spec sheet here: http/www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/Inspiron-17-7778-2-in-1-laptop/inspiron-17-7778-laptop-SetupAndSpecs/Storage?guid=GUID-31AEE62E-F2EA-4348-8CFA-765DADEEFB1A&lang=en-us

Bot h the M.2 and 2.5" drives are SATA based. The 960 Pro is a PCIe based M.2 SSD so no, it won't work.

Desktop M.2 can (fairly commonly) accommodate PCIe and SATA drives in the same slot - but not always, my Z97-A from ASUS is PCIe only...... Laptops are much more commonly one or the other. In this case, you've got a SATA M.2

Thank you, sir, for your reply and explanation. So, sounds like it will have to be a SATA drive with an adapter cable? On a good note, my replacement drive from Dell showed up on my doorstep today. I have to admit, that's a great response.

 

[Barty1884]

No, an M.2 form factor can use SATA also. No adapter required, but check any listing to ensure the M.2 SSD is listed as SATA and not PCIe.

The Crucial you listed initially is a SATA based M.2, and it'll work.
The 960 Pro will not.

 

[beckanator]

Looking at the spec sheet here: http/www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/Inspiron-17-7778-2-in-1-laptop/inspiron-17-7778-laptop-SetupAndSpecs/Storage?guid=GUID-31AEE62E-F2EA-4348-8CFA-765DADEEFB1A&lang=en-us

Both the M.2 and 2.5" drives are SATA based. The 960 Pro is a PCIe based M.2 SSD so no, it won't work.

Desktop M.2 can (fairly commonly) accommodate PCIe and SATA drives in the same slot - but not always, my Z97-A from ASUS is PCIe only...... Laptops are much more commonly one or the other. In this case, you've got a SATA M.2

Thanks for the help! I have a much better understanding now.

Am I correct in my thinking now that I can get a M.2 SATA based SSD to add to my laptop (it has a dedicated slot) and then the result is 2 drives (choosing my SATA SSD vs. the HDD for bootup)? From what I've read it should boot up and run my main programs faster, even though it's not the blazing read/writes found with PCIe M.2's from Samsung.

I also found this article which I thought was helpful.

http/www.computershopper.com/feature/2017-guide-the-best-m.2-solid-state-drives-tested

 

[Barty1884]

Correct. An SSD is still going to be faster than an HDD, even when SATA based.

 

[beckanator]

No, an M.2 form factor can use SATA also. No adapter required, but check any listing to ensure the M.2 SSD is listed as SATA and not PCIe.

The Crucial you listed initially is a SATA based M.2, and it'll work.
The 960 Pro will not.

Thank you again. I ordered the Crucial today. Awesome!