Hello all, I have a couple of questions concerning a particular M.2 SSD in a Dell 2-in-1 folding notebook. Here are some links to the relevant bits:
Notebook
https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...t/product/inspiron-17-7786-2-in-1-laptop/docs
SSD
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...es-16gb-m-2-80mm-pcie-3-0-20nm-3d-xpoint.html
This is a relatively new computer, but it has been quarrelsome from the start. It had a tendency to trip into the SupportAssist boot diagnostics and hang up on the very end of a hard drive scan. There are two storage devices, the aforementioned solid-state drive, and a 1TB hard disk drive. Cancelling the diagnostic before the kill screen would put you back into Windows 10 Home.
Against my better advice, the user continued with the machine, and continued to avoid all backup strategies. So, the 1TB hard drive is now dead, with all documents lost. A new hard drive is in it with a fresh, activated install of Windows 10 Home 1903, and seems to be running well enough.
Q1) What was the likely use of that 16GB solid-state drive?
Unfortunately, I did not do a proper inspection until after the catastrophe. Presumably the 1TB drive was the boot drive, so no clues to be had there. Was the 16GB a swap drive? I can't find any discussion of it in Dell's literature.
The SSD currently shows as entirely unallocated. Here's the odd bit, it claims a 13735MB capacity. If I begin to create a volume upon it with Windows 10 Disk Management, I'm allowed to make that volume up to 13733MB. I'm fairly certain these to previous MBs are actually referring to MiB (1 MiB = 1024 x 1024 B), so that would make the capacity just a bit over 14,402,000,000 bytes--that's only 90% of 16GB?
Q2) Does this reduced capacity indicate a failure in the SSD?
Maybe there's some sort of super hidden partition that could be used for UEFI or recovery options? It just seems odd. Here's a bonus question:
Q+) Is there any downside to just cramming a beefier M.2 SSD in there and using it as the boot volume?
Samsung 970 EVO
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-500gb/p/N82E16820147690
Thanks for any consideration you make.
Notebook
https://www.dell.com/support/home/u...t/product/inspiron-17-7786-2-in-1-laptop/docs
SSD
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...es-16gb-m-2-80mm-pcie-3-0-20nm-3d-xpoint.html
This is a relatively new computer, but it has been quarrelsome from the start. It had a tendency to trip into the SupportAssist boot diagnostics and hang up on the very end of a hard drive scan. There are two storage devices, the aforementioned solid-state drive, and a 1TB hard disk drive. Cancelling the diagnostic before the kill screen would put you back into Windows 10 Home.
Against my better advice, the user continued with the machine, and continued to avoid all backup strategies. So, the 1TB hard drive is now dead, with all documents lost. A new hard drive is in it with a fresh, activated install of Windows 10 Home 1903, and seems to be running well enough.
Q1) What was the likely use of that 16GB solid-state drive?
Unfortunately, I did not do a proper inspection until after the catastrophe. Presumably the 1TB drive was the boot drive, so no clues to be had there. Was the 16GB a swap drive? I can't find any discussion of it in Dell's literature.
The SSD currently shows as entirely unallocated. Here's the odd bit, it claims a 13735MB capacity. If I begin to create a volume upon it with Windows 10 Disk Management, I'm allowed to make that volume up to 13733MB. I'm fairly certain these to previous MBs are actually referring to MiB (1 MiB = 1024 x 1024 B), so that would make the capacity just a bit over 14,402,000,000 bytes--that's only 90% of 16GB?
Q2) Does this reduced capacity indicate a failure in the SSD?
Maybe there's some sort of super hidden partition that could be used for UEFI or recovery options? It just seems odd. Here's a bonus question:
Q+) Is there any downside to just cramming a beefier M.2 SSD in there and using it as the boot volume?
Samsung 970 EVO
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-evo-500gb/p/N82E16820147690
Thanks for any consideration you make.