SSD Upgrade...

Hi all, just waiting for my Alienware 17 to arrive. I'm thinking of trying to upgrade the drive to a SSD myself. First question, if I plan to only have a few games on the computer, and a few avi's, etc., will 256MB be enough?
Can I set up the SSD as the main 'everything' drive, but still leave the other drive in there as a separate drive letter just for storage? I'm new to this stuff, be gentle...
And, is this a good choice to go in the Alienware:

Canada Computers | Solid State Drives | Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (MZ-7PD256BW)

Thx!

 

That's the drive I would choose!!! and personally, 256gb would be more than enough. I'd install all your games on your storage drive though just to save space.

 

But wouldn't you want the games on the SSD so that they would run faster? Or does it not make a difference other than the initial load of the game??

 

your load times will decrease by running your games on the SSD, but your frames per seconds won't go up.

 

Yeah it's fairly straightforward to add the SSD drive and change it to boot from that. I'd advise you to get a 16gb flash drive for when it arrives and use alienrespawn to create an emergency USB as your first task after checking it's all OK. This will give you an easy way to restore your windows to the new drive (after changing the boot order in the BIOS). A lot less messing around against a full windows and drivers install. If you have problems you simply switch the boot order back to go back to your original installation. Once finished and tested you can format the old drive.

As bigtonyman says storing games on the data drive does not impact them very much except at initial load and I keep all mine on the HDD (around 400gb of games!). With a 250gb you'll have enough space to fit around 10 of the latest titles so it's still an option to use the SSD

 

I wouldn't bother with the 840 Pro, personally. It's a lot of extra money for what is basically an unnoticeable performance difference. The 840 Evo is a much better Buy, IMO.

 

microcenter has been getting in refurb crucial m4 256gb drives for 130 bucks

 

Since I'm about to do the same thing (waiting for AW17 with 750gb HDD and Win8; have Samsung 830 256gb SSD to add; would like to use the latter as primary and keep the former as storage), I'd like to ask you:

1) Wouldn't it be wrong to create an image of the out-of-the-box HDD on the flash drive and transfer it to an SSD? Isn't HDD-to-SSD cloning problematic because of the different technology?

2) From what I gather, the Win8 key is inside the bios. Does this mean that I can move the HDD to secondary bay, install SSD, put a random Win8 dvd and install with automatic autentication of Win8 as my oem copy?

3) Is there anyway to get the new SSD in place and working without disabling Secure Boot/UEFI and the likes?

Thanks.

 

Well I just recently upgraded the storage to a Samsung 840 EVO 750gb and a WD SATA III 1TB, as storage is sparse on laptops I thought I would squeeze as much GB as I could possible manage.

As steam allows you to install in multiple directories now, I have several games installed on my SSD (MWO, PA and Star Citizen) an I have noticed serious increase in load times

 

1. Different views on this. In my career as a PC/network technician I only ever used images from identical hardware configurations. Change a HD, fresh install, which is usually a good thing in it's own right. Of late I've been seeing that image restore is very sucessful. The main thing is that the inage is a nice clean windows install in the first place. This is why I said to make it one of your first tasks. Windows figures out it is on an SSD and does things like disable defrag so the code is there and working (from what I can figure out )

2. Automatic validation of the win licence does appear to be in the firmware. I noticed that a fresh install of win 7 from DVD never asked and just went to MS and authenticated. You should have a sticker with a code on it if it fails.

3. Don't know anything about the fast/boot UEFI stuff except that it is still a pain and for gamers the recommendation I have been seeing is to set it to legacy and forget about it?

That's curious, I have been seeing much longer load times in Steam lately, and it does not matter if it's from my SSD or HD . I just put it down to a 'tired' windows installation and I really need to refresh it - but too much work when it's the only issue . Maybe there is something else going on?

 

Yea I hear ya on a tired windows installation. I usually refresh my system every few months or so. Its been about 6-8 months since I've refreshed last. Haven't had time and I'm picky when it comes to how everything is setup.

 

1. If a fresh, shiny install of Win8 immediately lifted from the HDD can indeed 'adjust' to being loaded onto a SSD, then I'd be willing to try. It is very convenient, yeah.

2. Good (although as far as I know, stickers are gone)! Would I have problems in having the same license on two hdd simultaneously? If I don't format the HDD, can I keep them both with the same Win8 installed (in case I have to take out the SSD, I could still boot from HDD)?

3. Yeah, I heard the same thing. It's just that there are apparently some benefits, so looking for a way to keep it and install the SSD anyway. Will do more research. Thanks a lot!

 

1. I've seen 3 people do it this way without issue, and you only waste around 30 mins of waiting time to find out if it's all good. No stress either

2. MS doesn't check multiple license numbers unless both are attempted to be used at the same time, or the hardware changes considerably. If they are still using the same method as with vista/win 7 an existing registered licence number is checked against the hardware config when last connected in an attempt to confirm it's the same machine. If a single piece of hardware changes MS updates the validation. If too much has changed and validation fails they make you call in and get a one-off number. Of course win 8 could be completely different, maybe using some unique stored ID like the CPU and network adaptors have?

I always say to keep the original installation and simply swap the boot order in the BIOS. Easy rollback, you don't even need to open it up

3. The only benefit I have seen is a couple of seconds off boot - and supposedly more secure data storage, but of course there may be much more? I just hated win 8, and without an iGPU I cannot use UEFI anyway until/unless a new vBIOS is released. I have a feeling win 7 is going to stay mainstream for some time until (unless?) touch screens become the norm.

Good Luck

 

2. Like a boss That seems the way to go, but aren't the two hdd bays different in some ways? Something that makes one the 'primary', regardless of boot order?

3. Yeah, a lot of constrictions and headaches with UEFI and Secure Boot. Too bad.

 

That used to be the case with primary and secondary drives but this was set on the HD it's self usually with a jumper. Not used any more, it auto sets using the boot order as far as I understand it.

 

Regarding UEFI, I THINK that to disable Optimus, at least on the older M17x-R4, you have to have it in BIOS mode, so I do. Not 100% sure if that's true for the updated models.

I will say, Dell's BIOS on these actually works. I've messed with an HP and it's more confusing, and doesn't seem like the BIOS mode works perfectly. (Had issues with a Samsung I worked on too.)

 

That makes sense. The GPU card needs to have UEFI microcode on it and the older cards do not have it. It is probably in the 7xx cards so the newer machines will (I believe) be OK.

 

Yeah, exactly. So I'm looking for ways to put a SSD in there without messing up UEFI. I thought it couldn't be too difficult, but someone who recently got a AW17 and attempted to install a SSD told me there's no way to do it without disabling the damn thing.

 

Well that's disappointing. I would have expected these teething problems to be fixed on machines released with win 8. If you can get it to see a USB and boot from it I would expect the image to work fine, unless the new SSD does not show up

Any idea at what point it stopped playing?

Thanks,

 

I am not sure, and it may be his fault (that's what I was trying to understand by talking to you guys who are all pros ), but apparently it wouldn't let him boot from anything else than the original HDD. So he had to disable secure boot, install the ssd, put windows on it, and if he tries to turn on secure boot again, it doesn't let him boot from SSD.

This seems strange to me. However, having not yet received my AW17, I can only ask for other people's experiences.

 

NP

I'm kinda learning here since I've never used it, only read others experiences.

From what I understand UEFI requires special boot code that is used/copied during the install. The original DVD media is a UEFI bootable version. Switching after an install in BIOS mode is never going to work if this is true.

 

I returned an HP I couldn't get working right with a new hard drive I'd swapped in. It could have even been the drive's fault, I just didn't want to mess with all the testing involved, but it booted fine from the original drive, but at best would only intermittently boot from the drive I threw in.

It would be cool if you could get secure boot working again yourself on a drive and OS install of your choice, but I'm not clear on whether that can work or not.

For what it's worth, my R4 this year came with Windows 7, UEFI mode (though I don't know if it had secure boot, or if 7 even supports that?) It came (thankfully!) with a reinstall disc. I threw that on a new hard drive after switching to BIOS mode, installed that, then did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro in BIOS mode.

 

I received my AW17 with a 750Gig HD standard from the factory., I just basically removed the backplate , installed my new SSD 240Gig drive in one of the empty bays, rebooted the Laptop into the windows 8 Disc and did a fresh install on the SSD .
My laptop came with windows 7 installed on the Regular HD so now at bootup I have the choice of which OS I want to use...
I will format the windows 7 drive soon since windows 8 will be my OS of choice...

 

Unless you have some special top secret business intelligence or tons of private information stored on your system, Secure Boot is pointless. It introduces problems and provides nothing of value to average users. It is being implemented primarily so Micro$oft can control everything. Legacy boot is superior and allows you to run whatever OS and hardware you feel like running. With Secure Boot only Windows 8 or newer can be installed. Canonical paid extortion money to the Micro$oft Mafia to get a signature to allow Ubuntu to be installed, but other than that exception, nothing other than Windows 8 or newer will work with Secure Boot. Every piece of hardware is subject to having a BIOS signature in order to work. Even silly things like HDD and SSD upgrades can be rejected in a Secure Boot environment.

 

The Win8 copy on the SSD didn't give you any problem with Secure Boot? Did you disable it by any chance prior to installing the SSD?

Not a big deal to do without it, but benefits in boot speed plus some other variables (I know a guy who had to disable it and has since had slower access to his HDD from Win) mean I wouldn't mind keeping it.

 

My OEM disc of windows 8 that I purchased from Newegg gave me no problems on the install, It basically recognized both my SSD and Regular HD and and I choose which Drive I wanted to install it to..
No changes were needed in the BIOS or during the install process other than choosing to boot from the DVD..
Its pretty straight forward..
My system is running super quick and flawless...

 

That's very interesting, thanks. I'll try to do the same when I get mine.

So if the new SSD unit is not the issue, I'm wondering if maybe the problem lies with the OS dvd when it's not an official retail disc (I'm planning on downloading a .iso from somewhere and then authenticate it with the machine's OEM key).

 

I wonder if that's what's going on with the HP I tried-somehow even though there's a "legacy" mode some of that secure boot stuff is still screwing things up, making booting intermittent.

No such problems on my M17x-R4, thankfully!