Installing a ssd on my new alienware

Just purchased a new alienware 17 with the 750gb hard drive, I'm considering buying a 500gb Samsung EVO 840 to run along side it, my question is, is there room inside to do this whilst still keeping the optical drive?

 

Yes, there is: new 17 inch Alienware laptops have a room for 2 Sata HDD/SSD, 1 msata SSD and if you remove the optical drive - 3rd sata HDD/SSD.

 

Thank you very much, I assume the installation of Windows 8 onto it will be relatively painless?

 

Yes, just make sure to change BIOS settings to UEFI from CSM (legacy) and enable secure boot and fast boot. This has to be done before starting Windows 8 installation process.

 

You can also make a set of Recovery DVD's before you switch the drives over and then just recover from those to make it even easier

 

Is there a guide on doing this anywhere?

 

You don't need to touch the BIOS settings if the system came with windows 8 to start with. All you need to do is create some recovery DVD's and restore to the new SSD with them.

 

What would I use to create this

 

This is where i'm not 100% if it's like windows 7 you should have a program called AlienRespawn which will let you create the discs. I don't have a windows 8 alienware (and have no intention of buying one) so I couldn't tell you if its the same on 8.

 

my alienware didn't come with an MSATA nor win 8 so i am looking for instructions on how to set up UEFI.

 

UEFI is basicallydetermined in BIOS settings.

On my R4 when I upgraded to Win 8 with UEFI (need to set UEFI) the legacy boot needs to be disabled and sata operation can be RAID or SATA (no drivers needed, but more restrictive), RAID is needed for any raid setup or cache setup (need USB with drivers during windows install since windows won't see the drives properly or at all).

This has to be done before windows installation or it won't work, you can't change it afterwards without a lot of hassle.

It might be UEFI might want to check BIOS, windows 7 could have been installed under UEFI.

 

RAID or AHCI? cos there's no sata mode called SATA!

EDIT: nope it was installed under legacy cos i didn't get the one with the MSATA caching SSD.

 

Could you tell us if your system cam with Windows 7 or 8 originally? My guess is that your have Windows 8 since the system is new. Your should already have Alien Respawn in your start menu, if not - it can be downloaded from here.
Also if that is the case and your laptop indeed came with Windows 8, you do not need to change anything in BIOS settings as that should already be done in factory for you.

What are you trying to do? From your signature you already have msata drive and 2 HDDs as well as Windows 8.1.

Legacy (CSM) and UEFI are not related to msata caching SSD. CSM or legacy is user for installing older OS, like Windows 7 or anything else but Windows 8. You can still set up caching SSD under CSM and Windows 7 installation as well as under UEFI and Windows 8.

 

Could someone please delete this post?

 

more for future reference if i need to reformat my pc.

 

OK, if you have Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 installation media then you need to set BIOS to UEFI, enable secure boot, enable fast boot, change Sata operation to RAID. Raid is for your caching SSD, if you are not going to use the caching SSD, then this can be changed to AHCI instead of RAID.
That is if you need a clean install for SSD/HDD failure or what ever other reason. On Windows 8 you can also go 'remove everything and reinstall Windows' route from the settings menu if there are no hardware problems. Also the same could be achieved using AlienRespawn. For the last 2 options you would not need recovery media, but at the same time you can not replace the HDD/SSD with the recovery partition on it as it would not work.

On the side note: I do not know if your msata SSD is set as caching or not, I am guessing it's not. If it is, I would perform a clean install and use SSD as main drive for OS and software, then HDDs for storage. It would be a lot faster than having a big (>64GB SSD) caching drive for the HDD.

 

Thank you very much for the help, it will indeed come with windows 8 (the laptop should arrive in the post tomorrow, just thought I'd start this thread now to give myself a head start on how to set everything up - worked out a lot cheaper to get the laptop without a ssd, and add one of choice myself)

 

No worries That's exactly what I did - I bought my AW with HDD and just added my own SSD, which was cheaper. Still when I remember how much I paid for the SSD and compare with the prices nowadays...