Check Whether a Drive Is SATA or NVMe and Which Slot It Uses

**Get-PhysicalDisk** reports NVMe, SATA or RAID per device. That single value answers most of the question before any hardware inspection.

Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object DeviceId,FriendlyName,MediaType,BusType,Size,HealthStatus
Get-Disk | Select-Object Number,FriendlyName,BusType,SerialNumber,Size
Get-CimInstance Win32_DiskDrive | Select-Object Index,Model,InterfaceType,Size,SerialNumber

An NVMe drive in a x2 slot runs at half the lanes. The PCIe link is visible through the storage stack, and it is the difference between 3 GB/s and 7 GB/s.

Get-StorageNode -Name (Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object -First 1).FriendlyName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,OperationalState,UniqueId
Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName MSFT_Disk -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object ModelNumber,SerialNumber,BusType
Get-PnpDevice -Class SCSIAdapter,HDC | Select-Object FriendlyName,Status,InstanceId

The PCI location string names bus, device and function, which the manual maps to a slot. That is the only reliable way to know which M.2 socket is in use.

Get-PnpDevice -Class DiskDrive | Select-Object FriendlyName,InstanceId,LocationInfo
Get-PnpDeviceProperty -InstanceId (Get-PnpDevice -Class DiskDrive | Select-Object -First 1).InstanceId -KeyName 'DEVPKEY_Device_LocationInfo','DEVPKEY_Device_BusNumber' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object KeyName,Data
Get-CimInstance Win32_PnPEntity | Where-Object { $_.PNPClass -eq 'DiskDrive' } | Select-Object Name,DeviceID

A SATA drive behind a RAID controller reports RAID, not SATA. The controller's driver decides whether Windows sees the drive as NVMe or as a SCSI device.

Get-CimInstance Win32_SCSIController | Select-Object Name,DriverName,Manufacturer
Get-PnpDevice -Class SCSIAdapter | Select-Object FriendlyName,Status
Get-CimInstance Win32_PnPSignedDriver | Where-Object { $_.DeviceClass -in 'SCSIADAPTER','HDC' } | Select-Object DeviceName,DriverVersion,DriverDate

A sequential test separates a slow link from a slow drive. A drive rated at 7 GB/s that copies at 900 MB/s is limited by the slot or by the copy target.

Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName,BusType,MediaType,Size
# run a sequential test on the drive and compare against its rating
Get-Counter '\PhysicalDisk(*)\Disk Read Bytes/sec','\PhysicalDisk(*)\Disk Write Bytes/sec' -SampleInterval 1 -MaxSamples 3 | Select-Object -ExpandProperty CounterSamples | Select-Object InstanceName,CookedValue

A table of drive, bus type and slot makes the next upgrade decision trivial and prevents buying an NVMe drive for a SATA-only socket.

Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName,BusType,MediaType,Size,SerialNumber | Export-Csv "$env:USERPROFILE\storage.csv" -NoTypeInformation
Import-Csv "$env:USERPROFILE\storage.csv"
Get-CimInstance Win32_BaseBoard | Select-Object Product,Version