Aurora R10, installing SSD upgrade as the primary boot drive

Question

I don't know if anyone can help me but I bought a 1tb Dell M.2 NVMe SSD drive from Dell and I don't know how to install it on my. Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10.

I'd like to find a way to replace the existing operating system and data on the 256gb M.2 NVMe SSD on the motherboard to the new 1TB SSD drive.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here, but thank you for taking the time to read this and replying if you can.

JOcean · Accepted Answer

Is the M.2 SSD the only drive in the system or do you have an HDD as well? If you have an HDD then you can create an image of the SSD and store it on the HDD with a program such as Macrium Reflect Free available here. Then using the Macrium Reflect Rescue Media, you create a Rescue Media in the Other tools tab on MRF. Next remove the small SSD and install the new SSD. Then you can boot the system with the Rescue Media and Restore the image on the new drive.

Instructions on creating and restoring an image can be found on the Macrium web page and videos at YouTube such as found here.

Now if you do not have an HDD then you will need some place to store the image and you can purchase a drive enclosure for the M.2 drive here.

On the other hand if you are planning a clean install then download the Windows 10 media creation tool here, assuming you want Windows 10, and the tool will create a bootable Windows 10 installation flash drive.

Instructions for removing and installing the M.2 drive can be found on the support page here.

jdubyas · Answer

To have both NVMe drives installed, you'll need a NVMe PCI adapter. I have this in my R10 and I have 2 x 1TB NVMe drives. Many NVMe manufacturers like Samsung, Western Digital will have free disk cloning software available. For my R10, I installed the new NVMe drive and did a clean install.

GLOTRENDS M.2 PCIe NVMe 4.0/3.0 Adapter with 0.12 Inch Thick M.2 Heatsink for M.2 PCIe SSD (NVMe and AHCI), PCIE 3.0X 4 Full Speed, Desktop PC Installation (PA09-HS)

D00dBr4h · Answer

I used a SABRENT PCIe to M.2 NVME adapter to clone my install to another PCIe NVME drive --that lasted all of about 3 months before I broke down and bought a WD AN1500 Black to shove in the x8 slot but I still have the stock 500GB drive in the bottom x4 slot running at x1 speeds until I get a waterblock on my 3080 that will free up the x4 slot that for some unknown reason remains running at x4 when it's covered by literally every GPU option availible in these things.

Osckarre · Answer

I'm new to this generation of computers so it makes upgrading a bit confusing. I had sort of assumed I would need an adapter after a bit of research so I did order NVMe adapter here and am hoping it will do. But I just want to say thank you all so much for the instruction and advice especially JOcean for a solution.

JOcean · Answer

I have used a similar adapter in the past and it worked well. Happy to help out!

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Aurora R10, installing SSD upgrade as the primary boot drive

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