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    AW17 R5 (ranger) replacing DVD drive with HDD

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by nick81, Nov 6, 2015.

  1. nick81

    nick81 Notebook Evangelist

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    Hey guys

    Considering that I have decided on upgrading my existing AW17 instead of replacing it with the R3 based on the advice of many ppl here (replacing my 880m with a 980m by the end of this week), I was thinking of also removing the DVD drive which I used perhaps a single time since I bought the laptop with an additional HDD.

    Has anyone done this? I am fairly sure it shouldn't be too difficult to do. What I am interesting in, is how to maximize performance.

    I bought the laptop with a tiny mSata SSD and a 1 TB drive which I use for storage. I immediately installed a 240 GB 840 Evo SSD which I used as my OS drive and set up the mSata to cache the 1 TB drive.

    If I were to replace the DVD drive, do you recommend I move the 1 TB drive there and replace it with a 2nd 840 Evo and set both SSD's in raid 0? Or can I put the new SSD in the DVD location? I am only asking this because I am unsure of the type of connections to the motherboard. I'd definitely like to place my SSD's in order to get the most out of a Raid config.

    Thanks!
     
  2. nick81

    nick81 Notebook Evangelist

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