this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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m.2 SATA SSD advice (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by calamitycastle@lemmy.world to c/buildapc@lemmy.world
 

I'm waiting on a standoff kit to come in the mail, as this is my next troubleshooting step

I bought this SSD to fit into a thin client. I am new to stick drives so I think it's correct that I can only insert it one way due to the M-key (my port only has one divider, unlike the memory stick).

I don't have a standoff so the stick is in but at a slight angle.

The PC has no operating system yet so is it correct that a blank drive should show up in the BIOS at least? It shows the m.2 slot as being empty currently. Or is it potentially readable as is, but needs something on it to format it?

The plan is to chuck Debian on it to boot into, via a thumb drive, but I wanted to make sure it was at least installed correctly (I mean, it isn't because it should have a standoff).

If when my standoff kit arrives, the drive still doesn't show in the BIOS what would you recommend I do next?

EDIT: thank you so much for the advice so far! I added a standoff and I can now see 500Gb in the BIOS. Truthfully it might have already been recognised, there is a section for M.2 in the BIOS which was reading empty but it also lists primary hard drive and it's showing up there. Now to install me some Debian

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[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Can you post a picture of how it's "not seated correctly"? It should show up in the bios even with nothing on it.

[–] calamitycastle@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Yes, thank you. Assuming this works, see the dodgy angle that it currently has

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are you sure that drive is even supported? That slot looks like an NVMe slot. Notice how there's no plastic bump in the socket on the left of the drive. And there are pins in that slot area that are not touching any contacts on your drive.

I imagine some motherboards will support both SSD and NVMe, but if it supports NVMe, you want an NVMe drive. They are much faster. And since you said you can't see the drive in BIOS, your motherboard very likely only supports NVMe.

[–] calamitycastle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Ironically I accidentally ordered an NVMe drive before this and that wasn't recognised either. Per the internet you need an adaptor to put an NVMe drive in to the Wi-Fi slot, but that's a different slot to this one unless I've completely banjaxxxed this

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