How can I check the NVME specs

Question

How can I check the specs of the installed NVME other than lshw which only shows the brand. I am looking to know the model and voltage/power.

Moreover, is there anything one should know before buying a new one to replace another (e.g. like SSDs, voltage and power)?

CPU: i7-7700HQ

Answer 1

lsblk (List Block)

You can use lsblk command:

$ lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,LABEL,MOUNTPOINT,SIZE,MODEL
NAME        FSTYPE LABEL                 MOUNTPOINT     SIZE MODEL
sdb                                                   186.3G 2105            
├─sdb2      ntfs   S3A6550D005           /media/rick/ 178.9G 
├─sdb3      ntfs   HDDRECOVERY                            6G 
└─sdb1      ntfs   TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME                1.5G 
sda                                                   931.5G HGST HTS721010A9
├─sda4      ntfs   WINRETOOLS                           450M 
├─sda2                                                  128M 
├─sda5      ntfs   Image                               11.4G 
├─sda3      ntfs   HGST_Win10            /mnt/d         919G 
└─sda1      vfat   ESP                                  500M 
nvme0n1                                                 477G Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB    
├─nvme0n1p5 ext4   NVMe_Ubuntu_16.0      /             44.6G 
├─nvme0n1p3                                              16M 
├─nvme0n1p1 ntfs                                        450M 
├─nvme0n1p6 swap   Linux Swap            [SWAP]         7.9G 
├─nvme0n1p4 ntfs   NVMe_Win10            /mnt/c       414.9G 
├─nvme0n1p2 vfat                         /boot/efi       99M 
└─nvme0n1p7 ntfs   Shared_WSL+Linux      /mnt/e           9G 

You can see my NVMe SSD is a Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB

Create an alias for arguments

As pointed out in comments a typo was made for MODEL and the output was incomplete. To avoid that in the future and more importantly so you don't have to remember the arguments create an alias in ~/.bashrc called lsdrv which you can use all the time:

$ cat ~/.bashrc | grep lsdrv
# Create lsdrv version of lsblk without UUID's
alias lsdrv="lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,LABEL,MOUNTPOINT,SIZE,MODEL"

Now in the terminal you can simply use lsdrv to see all your drives complete with model number and other useful information.

Voltage / Power

This is pretty much irrelevant. The deciding factor is M.2 22x80 mm size or a different size. Also whether if it is Gen 3 x 2 or Gen 3 x 4 speed (the second is twice as fast).

For example I have two M.2 SSD bays the first one supports Gen 3 x 4 speeds the second one only supports Gen 3 x 2 speeds because there are a limited number of PCIe lanes on the Skylake chipset.

There may be other issues but this is what I remember off the top of my head. You should of course do your own research.

Basically you need to know the make and model of your computer to know the make and models of the M.2 NVMe SSDs you can install in it.

Answer 2

Maybe you can try the nvme list command.

The nvme tool might already be packaged in your distribition and can therefore be easily installed.

If not, then it can be downloaded here.

I don't have any NVMe SSD so I cannot check but it should give an output like this (but with no power nor voltage information) :

Node             SN                   Model                                    Version  Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev

---------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- -------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------

/dev/nvme0n1     S3EVNCAHB01861F      Samsung SSD 960 PRO 1TB                  1.2      1         689.63  GB /   1.02  TB    512   B +  0 B   1B6QCXP7

I have now (16/08/2023) have another nvme list output example from another server :

$ sudo nvme list
Node                  SN                   Model                                    Namespace Usage                      Format           FW Rev
--------------------- -------------------- ---------------------------------------- --------- -------------------------- ---------------- --------
/dev/nvme0n1          1940A7800230         WDC CL SN720 SDAQNTW-512G-2000           1         512.11  GB / 512.11  GB    512   B +  0 B   10109122
/dev/nvme1n1          1940A7800328         WDC CL SN720 SDAQNTW-512G-2000           1         512.11  GB / 512.11  GB    512   B +  0 B   10109122
$

Answer 3

You can get the specs from the S.M.A.R.T. data of the NVMe. An easy way to do it is with the smartmontools package.

Install:

sudo apt install smartmontools

Usage:

Replace nvme0 with your NVMe.

sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0