New to the Alienware 15, a few questions

Hey guys, I just took delivery of my Alienware 15 earlier today. This thing is a lot larger than what I was expecting, but feels extremely sturdy.

A few questions, I just ordered the Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB M.2 3.5-Inch SSD (MZ-N5E500BW). My current system has the 128 GB M.2 SSD Drive, but for whatever reason, it isn't the boot drive. So currently, I have the 128GB Drive (EMPTY) and the 1TB 7200 RPM Drive which is booting Windows 8.1.

I'd like to go back to Windows 7 (I have my own media). What is the best way to do this once my 500GB M.2 arrives tomorrow? I want it to be my boot drive.

Secondly, I'd like to clone over my Crucial 256GB SSD that has all of my steam apps, 3dsmax 2011, photoshop, etc apps on it. I have been reading about EaseUS Todo software. Can anyone recommend anything else?

I'd like to clone my 256GB drive (currently running Windows 7x64 Professional) over to the 500GB m.2 SSD.

I tried plugging my Crucial 256GB in, in place of the 1TB drive earlier, but it kept telling me it could not read from the drive. I'm not sure why.

Thoughts, opinions? Thanks

 

Hello.

Thats strange that your stock boot device is HDD not SSD.
But ok, my personal advice is to clone your current boot drive with some software like paragone drive copy or something like (I prefer to clone hide partitation with factory restore) to your new drive. You also can use your system with Win7 but I dont see sense in this. But in that case you can dont care about anything, install on your new drive Win7 and use your system without anything more.

 

Thanks, I ended up going with a fresh install on the Samsung evo 850 m2 ssd. I have another one on the way, so I'll be running 1TB in the m.2 slots, and a 1TB 7200RPM drive for the storage as well. Overall, the system is extremely snappy, moreso with Windows 7. I'm just not a Windows 8.1 guy.

And I agree, that was a very odd decision by dell to install the OS on the mechanical drive, vs the SSD.

 

Any word on the raid support?, I bought mine from Dell Mexico and unfortunately they sell it here with a 1tb 5400rpm drive from toshiba which has proved to be a huge bottleneck to my system, the hard drive is just bad and coming from a 7200 rpm on my old Eny 17 this kinda sucks since it doesn't feel completely as an upgrade. Is the Samsung 840 EVO m2 ssd a good option?

 

No word on the Raid support as of yet. Unfortunately.

And yeah, I can't imagine going back to a 5400 RPM drive. Especially have being on a 7200RPM or SSD.

The Evo m2 are really nice from my short lived experience. Mine are the Samsung 850 Evo. I have 2 x 500GB right now, and then the 1TB 7200RPM drive for storage. If Raid is ever allowed, I'm ready.

They're quick though. I've had a Crucial MX100 256GB for the last little bit, and I can't tell any difference speed wise between the 2. Boot in about 12 seconds.

 

Get Start8 if you hate metro and call it a day.
Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 will perform better on so many levels with this hardware and your new SSD drives.
There literally is no reason to go back to Windows 7 and you are actually losing performance and optimizations.

This coming from a guy that refused to move to 8.1 for years because of metro. Just sayin'!

 

I just got my notice from Microsoft on my free Windows 10 upgrade, so I'll probably just run 7 until then. I appreciate the suggestion on Star 8 though. I'll check it out on the family desktop.

 

Oops, its actually called Start8. Its wonderful I would probably still use it on Windows 10. It makes the start menu exactly like Windows 7. Its also very lightweight.