Aurora R11, RAM and HDD upgrades

You are right about the manual, for the RAM. The same applies for the HDDs.

But it only specifies the limits about what can be bought on the DELL site in the various possible configurations, but not the physical limits of the PC itself.

Obviously, it is perfectly possible to have 128 GB of RAM (non XMP) on such a hardware, as well as bigger HDDs.

Hence my two questions on these upgrades.

Yea I know the hard drives are fine, as long as your PC didn't come with a storage drive as there is only one 3.5" caddy.  But the Aurora lineup is especially picky about RAM.  I wouldn't be surprised if you're limited to 64gb, the amount validated by Dell.  People have enough issues just trying to post with third party RAM. 

I still believe the R11 can support 128 Gb (4x32) 2666 Mhz RAM, non XMP, overclocking disabled in the BIOS.

Anybody who has upgraded his R11 to 128 Gb ?

Many thanks in advance.

Yea when it was first released it was only validated up to 64GB ram but starting the end of last year they validated it with up to 128GB of the Dell kingston hyperx fury 3200 ram.  It's manufactured to Dell's specs so it's different from the retail kingston RAM.

Hey there, just got my r11 and ordered 128gb of hyperx fury ddr4 to match what came from Dell. This is to anyone out there trying this haha, it was difficult to get this rig running.  Appears the ram Dell installs is somewhat proprietary and/or the MOBO doesn't like 4-slot xmp scenarios. 

Anywho, the new ram has special stickers and clearly states that it is xmp compatible, but it wouldn't boot more than once with either xmp profile selected. Disabled xmp and it booted with a ram speed of 2400. I then used AWCC to change the ram speed to 3000 while xmp is disabled, which was achieved by selecting the ram 2 profile and rebooting. It isn't the advertised speed of 3200, but hey, it's an rtx 3090 with 128gb behind it. I'm ready to rumble. 

What would be your recommendation- I have m2 1 TB, but running out of space. Should I upgrade the 1TB to 2TB or add SDD? Or add m2 with NVMe PCIe adapter? We are looking for fastest storage solution

@Okawango 

You're correct with the assumption of: "support 128 Gb (4x32) 2666 Mhz RAM, non XMP"

I upgraded to an aftermarket HyperX Fury 128GB kit and can run 128GB @2666 stable.  When I reduce down to 64GB, I'm able to use XMP Profile#1 and run at 3200Mhz stable. 

I have an R10-3950X/3080 and an R11-10900KF/3090

NVME to PCIe will be the fastest.  The board doesn't support bifurcation, so the adapter needs to have a controller for more than one NVME.

I initially had the same issue.  Use your 1TB M.2 as a dedicated boot drive only. (this will allow room for windows updates, etc..) Then if your budget allows, get two 2TB Sata SSD's for the 2.5" drive bays and install all games and aftermarket software to those drives.  That 's the quick and easy solotuion. See link below:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R10-adding-a-new-2-5-quot-hard-drive/m-p/7655705

You could also, add an AIC addin card to mount M.2 drives as extra internal storage.  That will take more money, time and patience.  See link below:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R11-PCIe-slots/m-p/7680096

See this link as well:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R11-SSD-upgrade-from-1TB-to-2TB-Boot-Drive/m-p/7755001