Upgrading 7530 class 40 SSD to Samsung 970 Pro

Hello, first post here on NBR!
I'm looking at a lightly used 7530, my only reservation is the size of the SSD at 256GB. Also it is a class 40 (1500 MBps read / 350 MBps write). So I intend to upgrade to a 512gb Samsung 970 Pro.

From this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-ssd-for-precision-7730.825509/
it sounds like an easy, straightforward process to clone the Dell 256gb to the new Sammy 970 512gb.

My question is what are the pros/cons of cloning vs a clean Windows install on the 970? Does Dell customize the Windows installation to improve the performance? Or is clean Windows better? Why?

Thanks!

 

I would only recommend doing a clean Windows install if it is something that you are comfortable with. (If you have done it on prior systems, there isn't much of a trick to doing it on this one.) The Dell business system images are pretty clean to start out with, so it isn't strictly necessary. The Samsung data migration tool would be the quickest and easiest way to go.

If you do clone the drive, see my note in the thread that you linked regarding disabling or removing your old drive during the first Windows boot on the new drive.

 

Thanks Aaron. Will likely go with cloning.

 

If it's used rather than a formal refurb direct from Dell, wipe (including the MBR/partition table) and reinstall.

One usually has zero idea what the prior owner put on there, or if there's malware. I wouldn't even trust the recovery partition, since it's possible for malware to install itself there.

If its a clean Dell image from a trusted source, it should be fine to clone the Dell image and the Dell business images are pretty clean these days, but when in doubt, nuke.

Also, if you're going from a NVMe to another NVMe, cloning is kind of a pain since you either have to have both drives installed (I think that's possible with the 75x0 but not on most machines) or you have to save a backup image to an external drive and then do a restore.

 

Thanks for that insight. It's a scratch and dent refurb direct from Dell so I should be good .

The 7530 has three 2280 slots .

Btw ,the outlet has pretty good pricing and the chat sales people are quick to discount it more . The refurb workstations comes with 3 yr warranties.

 

A follow up question: if the Class 40 SSD read speed is 1500MB/s and the 970 Pro is 3500MB/s I'm wondering where i would notice the performance boost (i'm changing drives mainly for space... guess i could just add a drive w/o cloning but i wanted to keep the config simple)?

If the largest files i'll open regularly are RAW image files 15-50MB then the difference in opening time would be 0.03s vs 0.014s, ie imperceptible. Boot & resume from hibernation might be noticeable faster.

 

Naturally you'd only notice the difference with big data operations. Hibernate (both suspend and resume) may be such a case. I think raw boot will be less so since that involves mostly a lot of random reading of tiny files. These days I think you are fine with pretty much *any* modern SSD (speed-wise) unless you have specific "mass data" requirements.

 

Yeah I will mimic what @Aaron44126 said. I would buy a cheaper drive as you'd likely never notice a difference. Can't go wrong with a 960/970 evo or a SX8200 or something like that.

 

I've got to share my purchase experience...
The system i ordered was a scratch and dent (all functional parts are made good/refurbished, just the exterior of the chassis is blemished, still with 3yr warranty), i9, 32gb ram, 256gb Class 40 ssd, P3200 quadro, 1080 touch screen, fingerprint reader, backlit kybd for $2,464. When i chatted Dell outlet sales they quickly discounted it another 10%. Later I felt like i had bought to much computer and called to cancel and the customer service offered another $150 discount if i were to keep it.

 

That's a great deal, keep up with the trend and get a good cheaper SSD.

You can currently get a 480GB SX8200 for ~76 bucks from Rakuten right now with the code "AD13" or a 960GB for around 157 with code "AD27"