Just purchase new 15 se. Can I add msata?

Just curious, I just purchased a new inspiron 15 special edition ( DELL Inspiron 15R Special Edition (i15Rse-4267ALU) 15.6" Notebook - Newegg.com). Seemed like a good price and about $100 cheaper than equivalent at Dell.

Does anyone know if I can add a msata cache to this since it didn't originally come with one? Also, tried looking for info on this part number (i15Rse-4267ALU) but couldn't really find anything. What typically is different from these units bought from 3rd party vendors vs directly from dell?

Also, can I replace the dvd with a blu ray? Does it have to be a dell brand or will any 3rd party player work?

Thanks,
Rut

 

The daughter board the mSata port will be on is part# N7JHH, but they currently have zero stock, and it is very hard to come by.

I was in the same boat a week ago..just bought the 15R SE, and assumed the mSata port was on it, even though I didn't get that specific version..one of the online tech reps said I likely had it. So I purchased a 256gb mSata SSD from crucial. Since I won't be changing out the board, instead I purchased this mSATA SSD Converter to 2 5 inch SATA Case | eBay

so I thought be able to just replace my 750gb (5400rpm hdd) with that, and the plan is to put the 750gb hdd in place of my optical dvd drive with another caddy.

 

There are no dell brand drives really. For example, my blueray burner in my dell is made by panasonic. As long as its the same size and the same connection type, it should work 99.9% of the time. The plastic bezel on the outside tray might be your biggest problem.

 

Thanks for the info. I thin I 'll just install a SSD (Samsung 840 256g). Any special things I need to know about before doing this? I think I'll revert back to win7 at the same time.

Thanks,
Rut

 

Ok, it's official...I did a poor man's version of getting mSata on my SSD and it all works like a charm. This was because I didn't want to wait on the daughter board with the mSata port. Technically I could have just bought a straight up SSD and not worry about an mSata SSD, but I had already pulled the trigger on an mSata SSD (Crucial brand, 256gb) because of what a Dell tech had told me (claimed mine had mSata support).

So here we go

1. Bought Dell Inspiron 15R SE (bought the $699 model, 750gb 5400rpm HDD)
2. Purchased 3rd party mSata SSD from newegg (Crucial 256gb mSata SSD) $190
3. Ordered Optical -> SATA Caddy (12.7mm) to house the 750gb HDD as a storage drive) - $20
4. Ordered a 2.5" mSata -> Sata HDD enclosure. $20
5. Ordered a Slim DVD external enclosure ($10).

I received the Optical caddy and slim DVD caddy first, so decided to install those. It was my first time, but I figured it out and it was simple. My 750gb HDD resides in the optical bay now, and my optical drive resides in the external DVD enclosure, USB powered / connected. Nice to have a portal DVD drive/burner now to be honest.

Be careful taking the Dell optical drive faceplate off..I snapped a small piece off the faceplate of the Optical - > Sata caddy but luckily I didn't need that one.
Eject the DVD unit by sticking a paperclip in the tiny hole and let the drive pop out a bit. This makes removing the faceplate easier.

Received the mSata HDD enclosure today, and once I had the harness around it and the mSata ssd inside, I was able to install it into the original HDD location.

I had previously installed Windows 7 to the 750gb HDD, more for testing reasons. I thought I would run into a problem with duel installations. Wasn't the case.

I plugged my external DVD drive via USB, loaded my Windows 7 disc, and restarted the computer.

I pressed F2 and changed from AHCI to Intel Smart Response something..., it gave me a warning about how the bios could get messed up, etc.. and I accepted that. On restart, I pressed F12 and booted from the DVD in UHFI (I think) mode. When it says "press any key to load from dvd" do it.

Went through the Windows setup process, on a clean installation and it found my SSD. It was unallocated, so I chose it. Once installed and Windows 7 was loaded, I was able to see my old HDD (in the optical Caddy) was my D:. I had my dell drivers on there from a previous install, so I copied them over to my SSD, then went into computer management and deleted my partition on my HDD.

Pulled all my windows updates, made sure the computer had the right drivers, and boom having an awesome experience.

Boot time went from like 25 seconds to 10.