Need capability confirmation on Latitude 15 5000 - aka E5540 - mSATA and max RAM

I couldn't find an Owner's Thread for Latitude 15 5000 (aka e5540)

After a ton of searching, I'm still uncertain about if this laptop will allow and mSATA SSD as the OS boot drive (so a larger one - 128GB+)
or
what the maximum RAM is.

mSATA
The owner's manual says mSATA supported, but I'd love to hear from someone who's actually done it, put an OS on it, and booted from it.

RAM
The owner's manual says 8gb max, but Crucial's tool says 16gb. There is pretty good agreement that there are 2 DIMMs, and all the intel chips offered all support at least 16gb.
Here I'm less concerned with what Dell will put in a system and more concerned with future max expansion.

Thanks in advance!

 

I have the same concerns.
Currently have an E5540 and it does have an mSATA slot that I would like to utilize. But I don't want to drop $$$ on a drive if I can't boot from it or find out there is a specific brand/model I need to get for it to work.
I talked to Dell tech support and they told me there is no mSATA drive on it. But the documentation and my physical inspection says otherwise.

 

Have you contacted Dell and asked? I just got an E5440 and had a look inside. The slot is there, with cables prepared for a WWAN card. Would also like to know if I can install a regular large capacity msata drive in that slot.

 

Mine has mSata slot. My E5540 is without discrete graphics and Express card. According to User's manual only models with both the discrete graphics and Express card don't support mSata. The slot is next to wifi card.




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Anyone install an mSATA drive yet?

 

I did on mine (specs and photo up there), no issues at all. It can boot from mSata (installed OS on it).

I installed the mSata from Kingston, the only thing was that the drive did not come with a screw, which I had to get elsewhere then.

///

I am considering to get another machine with better CPU that supports turbo (i5-4300U) and selling this one. The i3 model I have is satisfactory with SSD, but not too good.

One more thing about fingerprint reader: it works good with Win 8, but often fails with Win 7 (drivers and software used are both from Dell).

For me, an average user, E5540 is very fine. Considering that it comes with AC wifi, low TDP CPUs and Win 8, it is sort of better than E6540. The Full HD panel is very nice and also has good viewing angles.


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Thank you!
I purchase a Crucial M500 240GB drive. Runs great and allowed me to dual boot the laptop using two different drives.

 

Sorry to hijack this thread which is about the 5540. I'm interested in the E5440, but only if it is equipped with a dedicated graphics card. I do heavy video editing, so relying on the integrated Intel HD graphics is not an option.

I was curious to discover that the touchscreen version of the E5440 with a dedicated graphics card is not possible. It's not listed as option on Dell's website, and when I chatted with one of Dell's sales reps, they also stated that this combination is not available. Why is this? Is there some sort of hardware limitation/conflict that is preventing the E5440 with a touchscreen to be equipped with a dedicated graphics card? Both the non-touchscreen and touchscreen versions of the E5440 have the i5-4300U CPU, but the non-touchscreen E5440 is available with NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M.

 

Hi withincaesura, could you tell us a bit more on how you installed the mSATA & got Windows8.1 to boot from it? It's more the software side of things I'm curious about as I'm close to buying this laptop.

It'll come with Dell's recovery discs but no OS disc to allow for a 'clean install of OS'. I'm aware that Win8 product keys are now burned into the BIOS.

I plan on leaving the internal hard drive, and wish to install a mSATA SSD as the OS drive. Any insight would be appreciated, thanks

 

You need install media for Windows and then select the mSATA during the install process, that is it. Setting the mSATA to boot device can be done from the BIOS.