Alienware 17 mSATA slot

I just got my Alienware 17 yesterday. I didn't like the hard drive options Alienware provided, so I decided to just get the base drive and order a 256gb mSATA drive and put two 1TB drives in the two regular hard drive bays as I already have those. Anyway, I took the bottom panel off yesterday and couldn't find an mSATA slot anywhere. I looked in the manual and there's no mention of it. I took the battery out, both hard drive slots out, the optical drive out, and the RAM. I couldn't find any mSATA slot anywhere, but they clearly offer mSATA drives as options. Surely they aren't using some kind of caddy and put an mSATA drive in a full size hard drive slot. Any ideas?

 

Check under the palm rest. Opposite side of motherboard. You can find disassembly instructions in the Alienware 17 Owner's Manual.

Feel free to use this thread for a mini-tutorial with photos or video. I am sure others will be interested in following the same upgrade path.

 

Well I took the palmest off and there's still no sign of an mSATA slot. What the heck is going on here?

 

Does anybody have an Alienware 17 that they ordered with the mSATA drive that wouldn't mind looking at what's in each of the hard drive slots? It's really looking like they put some kind of mSATA caddy in one of the full sized hard drive slots or something. I'm not sure why they'd do that unless they had an overstock of them.

 

It's on the bottom left of the left picture there. It's even labelled as "SSD".

 

I'm not sure how I missed that... That's why I wanted to put the photos up though. I guess I'll get it put in today after work. Thanks!

 

Happens to the best of us.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd love to hear what you think of the audio. I'm seriously considering one of these, but not living in America, I can't pop into a Best Buy and try one out.

I'm not expecting miracles, I've just been quite spoiled by my girlfriend's XPS 17. 22W of dedicated speaker power means absolutely nothing else in a laptop has come close to matching it (with the exception of Dell's Inspiron 17R SE, but that fell down in plenty of other areas). Anything you could contribute would be great.

 

I really like the sound of it. Compared to the Onkyo system in my last Clevo (in my sig) it's lightyears ahead. It's better than any laptop I've had before for sure and it has big sound too. I used to listen to the Clevo at maybe 70-80%. With the Alienware I had to turn it down to about 15-20% to achieve the same sound levels. At first I found it to have a bit of an echo but determined it was the audio of the video I was watching. When I played a good quality movie on it, it sounded great.

 

Well Clevo aren't really known for their audio quality (they're usually ridiculed for lack thereof ) but it's nice to know it's an improvement from there at least. One of the other options I'm considering is a W370ST. Better screen, more solid state storage, and better WiFi for a little less money, but I'm a bit iffy on the audio side, and (less so) the build quality aspects. I tend to prefer backlit keyboards for usability reasons as well.

 

I don't think the WiFi is better, and unless you're referring to the 90% gamut glossy screen, the screen isn't either.

One person has said that the 17 has louder and clear audio than his XPS 17 (with less bass--no subwoofer), and a "professional" reviewer calls it better than the MSI GT70's sound. I don't think we will hear much about any of these aspects until Anandtech or Notebookcheck uploads a review of the 17.

 

The 17 has a decent amount of bass actually. It has more than my Clevo did, and my Clevo had a subwoofer.

 

I am planning on doing the same thing (put an mSata into my Alienware 17 which should arrive next week).
What's the best way to install the system on the mSata?
From included disc?

 

That's the simplest way, but I'd always advocate a clean install from an OEM Windows disc, then installing only necessary applications from the Dell website.

 

Hi,
I don't like drives option either and that's the reason I still don't have my 17.
Was it hard to remove palm rest? Are there any plastic latches there too or just screws?

 

There's no included OS disc. You'll have to request one from Dell.

 

There are 22 screws that you have to take all the drives and the battery out to get to. Then there are plastic tabs that snap the palm rest into place but they seem durable. It's really not at all difficult, just a bit tedious.

 

Depending on the size of the mSATA you want to get I would recommend to use it as a caching device instead.

 

So not sure I understood this correctly.. There's room for an mSata drive and 2 more HDD's? If so I would love to add a second 1TB.. Though I don't know anything about how or where to install it.

 

In the Alienware 17 you can have a total of 4 drives including the mSATA and 3 HDDs (one would replace the optical drive)

 

When you remove the panel from the bottom of the laptop, it becomes very obvious where the second drive goes. There will be a metal caddy in place to install and secure the second drive, though the caddy will obviously be empty. It will also have 4 screws taped to it for securing the drive to the caddy itself. Hope that helps.

 

I just stumbled on to this video on where the msata port is. This (alienware) guy pointed it out that it was in the upper right side by the gpu. I do not have one of these computers, but I would first try the msata that says ssd. If that doesn't work then I would try for up by the gpu. (start the video at 4:01)

 

Very interesting. I can confirm that it works in the SSD slot. The guy also mentions "up to 128gb", but maybe that's just what they will offer. I put a 256gb in the spot labeled SSD and got the OS installed on it and it's working great.

 

That is awesome, I'm glad you where able to shed some light on it!

 

Hmm I will have to look for it. Now is it on the bottom or under the keyboard??

 

Is the mSATA slot SATA III or SATA II and if it is SATA III does that mean it is as fast as a standard SSD? I am thinking of doing the same as Gear332 and installing as large an mSATA as possible and then possibly RAIDing a couple of 512GB Samsung 840 pro's as

 

I was wondering this myself and didn't find anybody with an answer. My mSATA drive is a SATA III drive (Plextor M5M 256GB), so I'll try to remember to do a benchmark on it later today and see how it goes. I'm really hoping it's SATA III. I haven't played any games or anything with it yet so I haven't seen the loading times at all.

 

It's under the keyboard but you have to take the bottom panel and all the drives (including optical drive) and battery out to get the keyboard off.

 

mSata is slower than a SSD not by alot, faster than a standard HDD. Unless your into benchmarks you wont see a big difference.
I understand it is sata III but its the write speeds that are much lower on them. Hope this helps.

 

also its SATA III BTW..

 

Love to see some benchmarks from the msata port, and some boot times with a clean is install. Then I could have my 2 1tb drives and a SSD.

I saw come comments with regards to sound quality in comparison to a l502x 15in xps, my mrs has one of those laptops and terms of volume, depth of sound and quality the xps dominates my Alienware. Her rgb led screen is awesome too, my Alienware is better in every other category though.

Don't be put off though the m17 r3's sound is still good. Would be awesome to see an upgrade though.

 

Thanks Alienwolf. I am not into benchmarks at all but I am into having a fast computer. I especially love the short boot times with a SSD I am still undecided but will possibly go with an Intel 520 480GB as the boot drive and a Crucial M500 960GB as the data drive

 

I just received a Samsung 500g SSD going to pull the 2 x 750's raid 0 and put the OS on it. Use the mSata for caching a 750 I will install. I think thats a good way to go. Thought about getting a bigger mSata but the Samsung will give much better load times and the 500 will let me install my best games on it. This is for my replacement 17 that will be here 2morrow.

 

I have 1.25 Terrabytes of storage now and a bit more would be nice so I am thinking I will increase my C Drive size and move some pictures and stuff that is currently on my D drive onto the C Drive. That way I can stick with a large single SSD into the D drive.

My C Drive is where my work is, MS Office and such and it is very important to me and that was why I was thinking of going for the Intel 520 SSD. I have heard that they are very reliable and still really fast. I had a Crucial M4 240GB drive fail on me once so I am a bit gun shy I am not criticising the Crucial Drive as it was over two years old

 

That doesn't really seem to be the case as far as I can tell. Not with the latest crop of mSATA SSD's anyway. I just benchmarked mine and it has faster write speeds that many comparable full SSD's. I'll use the Samsung 830 as an example. Here's a link to an article with a benchmark for the Samsung 830.

Samsung 830 Series SATA 3 512GB SSD Review - Amazing Performance and an Unbeatable Toolbox | The SSD Review

Here's my personal benchmark of my Plextor M5M 256gb.



As you can see, the mSATA drive is faster in some areas and the 830 edges it out in others, but overall very comparable I'd say. And my benchmarks match pretty closely to that same website's benchmarks of the same drive. The mSATA port is definitely SATA III.

 

Don't rule out mSATA! They've made up the gap on the regular SSD's and it'll leave you room for two large HDD's in the full sized hard drive ports.

 

Nice to hear I just may get a bigger mSata for the OS and get another 840 ..got me thinking now.

 

Gear332 you must be really pleased with that! Great news and thanks for sharing. I might end up using a large mSATA and just the single SSD..... possibly move some movies onto a 1TB disk in the last slot The possibilities are endless.

 

I think what I would do is put a 256gb or 128gb mSATA for OS and then raid 0 two 512gb ocz vector or samsung 840 pro just for the heck of it and try to push for 1GB read and write speeds!

 

Interesting thought but I will need something larger than 256gb as the primary drive. I have a couple of weeks before I need to make a decision but I think I will go for a 480GB Intel 520 SSD as my boot and a 960GB Crucial M500 as the data drive and not worry about the mSATA. But of course with a couple of weeks to go I am sure I will be changing my mind again and again. Ah the joys of planning the next major purchase.

 

There are mSATA drives larger than 256gb as well. I mostly wanted to use the mSATA so I would have the primary and secondary slots open for larger HDD's. Mushkin has a 480gb one. Samsung has a 512gb one as well.

 

Hi guys do all Alienware 17 computers have mSATA? I run the compatibility list on MyDigitalDiscount. This is what I have in there now Alienware M17x R4. I was told only the R4 edition has mSATA that is why I put that there. Is this true?

Thanks

MyDigitalSSD

 

Yes, they all have an mSATA port. It runs SATA III speeds (6Gb/s).

 

Hey guys,

Quick question as I'm a bit confused, when I opted for my Alienware 17 it came with the 80gb SSD msata option. Now I thought I could use that SSD to run stuff off it, however on first power up I can only use 10gb, the model number of the drive is LITEON DMT-80, is this right? Shouldn't it say somewhere areound 80gb? Even in disk management it show's only 10gb total size. Screenshot attached.

Thanks

 

Just to confirm the slot is a Full size mSATA and not a Mini or half size slot correct? Going to order on and just wanted to be sure because the Stock Spec PDF says "One mSATA full mini-card".

Thanks in advance!

 

That doesn't seem right. You shouldn't see anything except the primary HDD in My Computer, if the 80GB is a caching SSD.

Look in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology control panel. You should see them both there. Here is what I see with my SSD's, including one mSATA:

Spoiler

 

I love it when the first thread I find on search is exactly what I needed

So this Crucial M500 should work fine?

 

Actually I like the MyDigitalSSD better.

 

The largest possible cache size is 64GB, so an 80GB SSD will have usable drive space that can be used for whatever you wish. If Intel RST has a 64GB cache setup that would explain why you can see a partition with 10GB available. I have a 120GB Mushkin mSATA and using the maximum cache size leaves me with 50GB of usable SSD drive space. If you wish to use the entire 80GB SSD for something other than HDD caching, then you need to disable Acceleration and reset the mSATA to show the entire SSD as "available" in the Intel RST Control Panel.

Yes, that is correct. It is a full sized mSATA slot.

 

Hi J.dre & mr.Fox.

Yup, you're both right, after totally screwing up my raid setup I soon come to release that it's all done via the Intel software and as soon as I set the SSD to be used for cache Intel immediately assigned 64gb to the SSD.

Many thanks both for your response though.