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13476
August 16th, 2017 09:00
Can I swapping out 32Gb SSD in Dell XPS 15 9560?
Just ordered this laptop and see it comes with a 32GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I assume the SSD is used as a cache and the HDD holds the OS. So would there be a worth while performance gain by keeping the HDD as storage, and swap out the small SSD for a larger SSD to hold the OS? Someone else suggested that the 32gb SSD is integrated into the HDD, like this one here.
Does anyone know if this laptop has two seperate drives, one SSD and a HDD, or is it just one drive? If there is a separate SSD are there certain SSD's that I should look at to upgrade it with?
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jphughan
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August 16th, 2017 10:00
And to answer your other questions, yes it will ABSOLUTELY be worth the performance gain. If you've never used a system with a true SSD before, it is absolutely transformative. A system that's 5 years old and receives an SSD upgrade will be faster for most everyday productivity tasks than a brand new one that's using a spinning hard drive, just for perspective. It is by far the best performance per dollar value for everyday usage scenarios. And a cache is not even close to the same thing, for several reasons:
- Currently, only 32GB of your data at most is even on the SSD
- By default, only READ operations are accelerated with that cache, so you're currently getting no benefit on WRITES. You can change this under Intel Rapid Storage, however.
- I'm fairly certain that the 32GB cache unit uses the SATA protocol and has relatively slow flash storage even by SATA SSD standards, whereas the XPS 15's M.2 slot can also support SSDs that use the NVMe (PCIe) protocol and that have much faster storage anyway.
In terms of specific SSDs, the Samsung 960 Evo is your best bet.
jphughan
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August 16th, 2017 10:00
The XPS 15 9560 uses a separate chip for its SSD cache, not a hybrid hard drive like the one you linked. Yes you can swap that out for a "full-size" SSD. I personally would also recommend switching the SATA mode from RAID to AHCI as part of that operation, but that isn't technically necessary, and it would also require you to reinstall your OS (which I also recommend) or at least jump through some extra steps in order to do that on an existing installation.
If you intend perform this swap without a clean reinstall of your system, you first need to disable the caching feature by opening the Intel Rapid Storage app, and then I think you'll find it under "Acceleration". Then I would update to the latest version of the Rapid Storage application/driver. Finally, swap the SSD and then use a tool such as Macrium Reflect (the Free version will be fine for this) to clone your spinning hard drive to your new SSD, then boot from the SSD and wipe the spinning hard drive.
robert p
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August 16th, 2017 10:00
Hi flyboy320,
Thanksfor posting.
I see you have posted your question in numerous forums, I hope you find the answer you're looking for. Here is one answer: http://dell.to/2w2fR9s
flyboy320
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August 16th, 2017 10:00
Great, thanks for all the help guys :)
I did post on another forum as well, but I was getting and answer I felt was incorrect. I was told the SSD was integrated into the HDD, like this one here, so I figured I should just post here on the Dell community.
Glad I'm able to confirm it's a separate SSD and easy to swap out. I will order it so I have it ready when the laptop arrives and just do the clean install.
flyboy320
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August 16th, 2017 12:00
Looking at Newegg's site (Canada), is this the SSD you recommend jphughan?
jphughan
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August 16th, 2017 16:00
^ Yep, that's the one! Available in a variety of capacities, so choose whatever makes sense for you. Good luck!
flyboy320
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August 16th, 2017 17:00
I plan on swapping out the 32GB SSD with a new larger SSD even before I power on the laptop for the first time, so do this right from the start. I will also remove the HDD while doing a clean install of W10.
Just searching now for a good guide on doing a fresh W10 install on these laptops.
Saltgrass
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August 16th, 2017 17:00
There are some things to think about. It appears if a 32 GB drive was in the M.2 slot, it may not have a Thermal Pad which is shown on the full size M.2 drive. You may want to see if it is really necessary and act accordingly.
Secondly, if the system is set up for an Acceleration drive, as was mentioned, you can tell from the Intel utility in the hidden icons section on the Taskbar. You may want to undo that prior to removing any drives. If it is to be undone, once you select disable acceleration, give it time to unwind prior to shutting the system down.
And lastly, if you have an OS installed on the 2.5 inch drive, you may want to switch it to AHCI before you try to install a PCIe drive, which the Samsung 960 EVO is. I always suggest removing other drives when changing OS drives to make sure the other drive is not used in the process. It is not necessary to reinstall the OS after changing the controller, if it is done correctly. But if you replace the drive later and it was not switched earlier, it may lead to problems.
flyboy320
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August 17th, 2017 07:00
Can I have both the Samsung EVO SSD I linked to above as well as keeping the 1TB HDD as well, or can I only have one or the other physically in this laptop? Ideally I want both, use the SSD for the OS, and the HDD for games/video/etc. storage.
Saltgrass
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August 17th, 2017 08:00
The other thing about changing out the drives before you run the system may not be best. Running the system for a while allows you to get the system registered through the software and check it for functionality.
You can also create a Win 10 Recovery drive in case you have problems later. This drive will restore a clean drive to the factory condition, on newer systems with Win 10 pre installed.
Also, I remembered one of my systems has a metal hold down with the thermal material on that piece.
jphughan
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August 17th, 2017 08:00
You can absolutely keep both installed as independent drives. I agree with Saltgrass above that using AHCI would probably be preferable, but even if you keep it in RAID mode, the Rapid Storage driver will actually show them as two separate devices. In fact after you disable Acceleration in the Rapid Storage application, you should be able to go into Disk Management and see your current 32GB cache as a separate device, and technically if you wanted to, you could actually format that as NTFS to use it.
Saltgrass
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August 17th, 2017 08:00
One thing I am not sure of is I once tried to do a clean install on a PCIe drive while using RAID. The install would not see the drive so possibly I needed to load some drivers. Others may have had a different experience.
One thing I did not try was using a M.2 SATA drive for the install. It may work normally. The one advantage for it is the less cost per GB.
In case you don't know. the SATA setting to AHCI or RAID controls whether the M.2 slot runs as SATA or PCIe. On many systems, Dell installs the PCIe drives and runs them as SATA, thus the RAID default setting.