can i upgrade my alien 15 R2 15.6

hi,ok took the plunge and bought another alienware laptop 2nd hand,it has the 1tb hardrive with gtx 970 and 16gb ram and my question is can i add an ssd on this but also keep the 1tb on board ? is there room inside these for both ? also to put my mind at rest i can hear the hd inside this machine pinging away now and again not all the time just when i hear the fan cutting in, is this normal ?

 

The ping sound you hear are the pwm fans jumping on or off.

Regarding the HDDs you can use 1 2.5inch drive. which is the mechanical drive now. you can add up to 2 m2 ssd's still.

 

hi,thanks for the info and ive never even heard of these m2 ssds !! every day is a school day as they say,will deffo get one of these but is it easy to transfer all the windows files etc to the ssd or is it better starting again with fresh windows install ? and what would you say is best size to go for ssd ?

 

Minimum of 256gb i would say. but transferring windows from one drive to another is a bit tricky in these systems. there is a tutorial somehwere in these subforums so i recommemd to check those.

 

hi,might just do the fresh install when i get one but will have a look round the forum,i agree 256gb would probably be best for me but i can wait untill the new year before i do it as its not that sluggish with the 1tb drive but everything is being installed onto it games etc,pretty impressed with this laptop to be honest its handling any game im trying on it & £600 uk pounds is a pretty decent price for this but warranty has ran out !!

 

you can do a fresh install of windows 10 by removing the HDD for the instalation and only put the m.2 SSD where you want the OS... after installing it, you can put it again and format it using diskpart and use the 1TB for second storgate, if you have the 15 r2, you have room to install 2 ( PCIE SSD or SATA 3 SSD), the max can be 960 pro of 2tb each one(pcie) or 1tb 850 evo m.2 each (sata3)

 

thanks for the info m8,the only problem i can think of is windows 10 as i never got any disks of the seller,this laptop was sent back for repair by the seller and had a new hd fitted under warranty and dell installed the windows 10 on the drive for her,how would i go about doing this ?i would deffo like a ssd drive in this for windows only and keep the 1tb for games etc

is windows 10 still free or can i get anything off the 1tb drive

and do these m.2 ssds fit straight in no cables or anything to fit ? i can see a cover on the bottom of the laptop with 2 or 3 screws in it

haha my luck !! just tried to remove the 2 screws from plate underneath to have a look and one of the screws feels like it pulling the piece its screwed into out with the screw !! the screw wont come out & knowing my luck it will fall into the system and short it out lol

just watched a vid on youtube piece of cake to fit ! just need to get the screw out