XPS 8920, replacing the original HDD with a SSD?

Question

Hi everyone,

I have a XPS 8920 and I want to replace the original HDD (mechanical drive) with a SSD drive. My question to this board is about the Optane memory that's paired with the original HDD. If I remove the original HDD and replace it with a new SSD will I be able to install the original factory operating system from Dell and pair the Optane memory?

I've worked on PCs for a long time but never delt with this Optane in the equation. Any help would be appreciated.

Chino de Oro · Accepted Answer

While it is possible, there is more risk and no advantage of doing so. Hardware wise, the Optane was performing as a cache to the hard drive and improved the overall speed. A new SSD already have similar read/write speed as the Optane and have its own cache with high performance controller. Aging hardware may make it more riskier to use the Optane for no performance gain in return. You can remove both of the old hard drive and the redundancy Optane, just use the new SSD by itself.

Software wise, the original operating system for this machine is very old. Since 2017, Microsoft has provided Windows updates every month and version upgrades twice a year, going back to original version will expose your machine to multiple risk and will require a lot of time to update and upgrade to catch up with all drivers and patches. Or you can create a Windows installation USB drive directly from Microsoft creation tool, and you have an up-to-date version of operating system.

Personally, I am not a fan of all the extra support and assist tools as they seem to create problems more than solving them. Your machine is out of warranty by now, so don't be shy to support your own machine.

Deniz-I · Answer

Chino de Oro,

Thank you for the suggestion. I read many instructions on this subject and most of them sounded like it wouldn't be very beneficial or easy to accomplish. I'll have to look into which type of SSD to purchase; I'm not knowledgeable on what's the best option for a SSD.

Deniz-I · Answer

I appreciate the help, I'm going to read the links and order a NVMe SSD, as far as availability, I'm in California and use Amazon for most electronics.

Chino de Oro · Answer

Your machine can accommodate up to 3 SATA hard drives or solid state drives, HDD/SSD. There is an M.2 slot on motherboard which can be used with NVMe SSD, the chewing gum style. The choice is yours, depending on your usage needs and your budget. Knowing your accessible market, the suggestion can be more specific with available products.

Always back up your data prior to any work. It is easy to pair or unpair the Optane memory, just following this instruction.

Here is your system specs, and the service guide which will be handy when you work on your system.

Some basic instructions and links for Windows installation were provided in this thread. Set SATA mode to AHCI in BIOS settings.

Chino de Oro · Answer

North America, products are widely available with competitive pricing, nice. For NVMe SSD, you may want at least a 500gb for starter, or 1tb of PCIe gen3 with decent warranty. If you have a large graphics card, it must be removed to get access to the M.2 slot, and you probably already know that.

Upgrade from a hard drive, you will definitely feel the different in performance. Hope everything will go well with your upgrade.

Deniz-I · Answer

When I found my purchase date for the XPS 8920 I was surprised that it was January 2018, it’s 4+ years old (manufactured in 2017) machine, we’ll see what kind of performance increase the SSD will give me. Thanks for your help.

delltoid71 · Answer

Recently replace the existing HD with a SSD and boot time was WAY faster. Used to take 5-10m  now less than 30 seconds.  WELL WORTH THE UPGRADE. 100x faster boot time. way better performance. Not sure how Optane even helped, but performance is so much better with SDD than original HD. I did reinstall the OS, but well worth it. Wife was about to chuck this thing into the river (I have to wait 10m to print!), but now usable with the SSD.

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XPS 8920, replacing the original HDD with a SSD?

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