Installing an m.2 SSD

As I stated in another thread, I am finally living my dream of owning an Alienware computer!

I got one without an SSD and went online to buy my own. It is going to be my OS/games drive while the 1TB is going to be for storage.

Is there anything I should be aware of when installing the m.2 SSD? Any issues/known bugs? Any tips or tricks?

Thanks in advance =D

 

mmm i response something similar before... http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19629341

if i were you, i will buy the new samsung m.2 950 EVOpro SSD

 

That is exactly what I ordered. Already have it ready to go.


Thanks for the info! Installing it tomorrow.

 

Where did you buy yours? Amazon still has it on pre-order.

 

Oh, sorry. Didn't realize you wrote 950. I got the 850.

 

i have 2 850EVO m.2 and i love them :3

 

i forget it .... you need to buy the screw, it didnt come with the notebook or the SSD

 

I hope you got the R2 otherwise with the R3 you should have gone with the PCIe PM951

 

not necessary, because only one m.2 on the r2 will run at the speeds of pcie. at the moment the PM951 sucks, heats a lot and throttle speed and consume more energy.
nothing to care about. Only the 950pro m.2 is a good deal.
and using samsung rapid mode you can reach insane speeds, more than pcie ssd

 

It seems like most people with negative comments on the PM951 a) don't actually have one and b) have never used or seen one. I actually have a 1TB PM951 and ran the benchmarks in Samsung Magician.

RAPID mode, by moist accounts, is junk. It makes a system vulnerable to data loss and takes away a hefty chunk of your system RAM. The results you see when RAPID is enabled have nothing to do with drive performance - it uses your system RAM to artificially boost performance testing. Real world results do not work out as well as testing would seem.

I should also add that I do not have an issue with heat. The SM951 is the one that requires cooling. The area where my PM951 is installed is actually quite cool - it's not even warm.

You mention that one of the M.2 slots on the R2 will run at PCIe speeds. Source? How can a SATA slot have speeds above and beyond what the protocol will allow?

Below is a screenshot from my system - default OS install without any tweaking or performance enhancing for RAPID or any other Magician settings. My read/write rates for THREE TIMES a 950 SSD. That's real speed - that you can actually feel. Random read/writes in testing are on par with the 850. Boot times are mere seconds. I also have an 850 (half gig) for my work laptop and the differences between the two are shocking.

 

You can get the screws here.

 

ok lets see a real world difference, make a video showing your boot time, if you can beat 8 seconds of mine i give you the reason. dont let you
cheat with benchmarks, in real world you can't see a real difference, only in the price.
(this is windows 8.1) today i have windows 10 like 2 seconds more

 

"My read/write rates for THREE TIMES a 950 SSD" i am going to think that you didn't say this XD.
For reference 2 (950 pro), have something like 5000 mb/s read and 3000 mb/s write------ 850= 550mb/s ..... 530mb/s
ok lets talk about real world benchmarks:




ok, now you can feel proud of your "speed" on benchmarks hahahahaha

 

I was actually coming here to ask about where to get the screws. Thanks!

 

9 cents screws... 10 dollar shipping

 

Would they have any of the screws at Fry's? Or a store like that?

 

Your local hardware store(home depot or lowes) should carry them. typically in the drawers in the front of the nuts and bolts section.

 

Hello everyone, we are sure that the 950 Pro is 100% compatible with AW 17?

PCIe 3.0 x4 (up to 32 GB / s) NVMe 1.1

Ciao

edit:
I received the AW17 with a PM951,it is fast, but not as much as the 950 Pro, he is faster+++

edit2:
To date in Italy the 950 Pro is not yet available, it is only booked the 256GB. and from us the price is 225.98 Euro on Amazon.it

 

wait to get the 1tb 950 pro, if you have the money, you should wait.
also i am going to tell you what happened to me. when the 850 EVO m.2 was new, i bought it from amazon. 2 months later it have a 26% discount really bad. Advice: wait a bit.

 

hi, on amazon.uk, 950 Pro 512GB is booked, but:
Price: £ 285.20 & FREE Delivery in the UK. Details
Usually dispatched Within 1 to 3 months.

in Italy you have not yet booked the 512GB, wait.

ciao

 

hi, how can you have those values in reading and writing, I have your same PM951 and doing a test with Magician, I have these values: (the first is, EVO to 500GB)





ciao

 

change sata operation on BIOS to AHCI

 

already, I had set raid and put ahci.
But on the web page of samsung, for the PM951 indicates these values:

Sequential Read Up to 1050 MB / s - Sequential Write Up to 560 MB / s

you have changed more in the BIOS, or you've enabled the rapid mode of magician.

ciao

 

rapid mode is amazing !

 

Thanks, but I bought those exact screws, went to install it and the head of it is WAY too small. The SSD just flops right out.

Gonna find the correct screw.

 

Yikes...I'm glad I've read until the end of this thread to see your post...I almost ordered some...

 

Ok guys so I've just installed my Samsung 512GB m.2 Pro and tried to boot into my USB Windows recovery, however, when I get to the screen to choose where to install Windows, the 950 Pro isn't there....

I'm sure something simple I'm overlooking.....

Can someone provide a list of things to do for a fresh install of Windows onto the m.2?

Thanks.

 

This is the one I ended up ordering.

 

Perfect....I had just ordered them like 2 minutes ago...awesome.

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

Just ran a speed test on my m.2 Samsung Pro 512GB. This is without Samsung Magician...just plain Jane, no software stuff...5 runs and...wow...

(Windows 8.1 Pro w/ Classic Shell.)