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April 14th, 2015 08:00

Compatibility between Inspiron 15R N5010 (5010-7015) and WD black^2 (WD1001X06XDTL) dual drive 2.5''

Hello,

I own a Dell Inspiron 15R N5010 (5010-7015) / i5 / 4GB RAM / 320GB HDD and I am interested in upgrading the internal hard drive to the dual drive series from WD (black^2 - WD1001X06XDTL).

The system supports SATA2 and a variety of capacities between 160GB and 640GB for 5400rpm and only for 320GB and 500GB on 7200rpm according to the manual.

Is there any possibility that I could upgrade to a WD Black2, or I will face compatibility issues?

Does the specific model (N5010) support that technology? The only list I was able to find was this one: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11024/~/wd-black%C2%B2-dual-drive-computer-compatibility-list

If not, are there any other alternatives for a hard drive upgrade [i.e. Seagate 1TB Laptop SSHD (STBD1000400)] that would have full compatibility?

As you can see I am looking for anything as close to an SSD but not an SSD.

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

April 15th, 2015 10:00

The black2 is essentially a 120G SSD to the system - which IS supported by your model.  The hard drive won't even be seen by the system's hardware -- it's handled through a driver that loads (which is why the Black2 is OS-dependent).  Windows accesses the hard drive though software - NOT directly through the system.

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

April 16th, 2015 11:00

The driver must load from the SSD in order for the operating system to access the data on the hard drive - so, if the SSD fails, the contents of the hard drive are lost.

If backups are kept, the situation is no different than it would be in the case of a system that has a single drive -- you would still need the backup to restore the system.

April 17th, 2015 09:00

Hi there! :)

Once the drive is initialized there is no further correlation between the two partitions - they operate as separate C: and D: partitions.

As for your question about what happens if the Black Dual drive fails, there are 3 options:

1) The drive fails completely – if the drive fully fails, then it is just like any other hard drive. Both the SSD and HDD will not be accessible and if the user needs data, they will need to contact a data recovery company.

2) SSD reaches its write life – in case the SSD reaches it write life, just like any other SSD, it will go into read-only mode. An SSD’s life is only with writing and not reading so you will most likely not be able to boot from the drive since Windows does writing to a drive during boot. However, you can use the drive as a secondary HDD on SATA, or possibly a USB-to-SATA adapter and access the data. The drives HDD could then be used for storage if you still wants to use the drive - only the SSD would be affected.

3) The HDD partition fails – If there is a mechanical or other failure that just affects the HDD, the SSD should work fine since it is a separate drive. If you need the data stored on the HDD, then you may have to contact a data recovery company.

Hope this helps.

Cheers! :)

9 Legend

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87.5K Posts

April 15th, 2015 05:00

The Black2 functions as any standard SSD and hard drive -- as long as the OS you're running supports it (it's software-controlled), you're set.  It'll work with Windows 7 or Windows 8, no problem. It won't (unless something has recently changed) work with Linux, though.

April 15th, 2015 05:00

As you can see in the list I submitted on the original post (the link), there are incompatible devices which prove that the OS is one of the factors influencing the compatibility, but not the only one.

What if the motherboard can't support an SSD on the first place, or the capacity of 1.1 TB?

After contacting Dell in my country, I didn't get a straight answer, but something in between yes and no.

April 15th, 2015 15:00

So after installing the hardware (Black2 as primary drive) the one that is seen first is the SSD (120GB). Next step is the installation of the software which makes visible the 1TB of the HDD part. Is there any further correlation between those two drivers? They seem to work separately after software's installation, but what if one of them crashes? And to be more specific, what if the SSD crashes? Will you able to use the HDD (i.e. if you boot from another drive), or even recover your data from the HDD without any corruption?

4 Operator

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34.2K Posts

April 15th, 2015 16:00

Hi Konspilioto,

That's what backups are for. ANY drive can crash at ANY time.

April 15th, 2015 17:00

Hello :)

I couldn't agree more with you, but it is important to know what happens in case of a crash. Do they really work separately or if the one fails takes the other down too?

4 Operator

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34.2K Posts

April 16th, 2015 16:00

They're in the same case, so you can bet if one fails, the whole thing is dead.

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