Unsolved
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
1341
March 9th, 2022 10:00
Aurora R6, 1TB M.2 SSD boot drive capacity larger than normal?
I have Aurora R6 Desktop.
I'm trying to find exact replacement for internal boot drive, it is a M.21TB SSD. The current one shows a capacity of 1TB 953.87GB. But I've only found 1TB with a capacity of 931.51GB (standard capacity I think).
Q1: Why would the internal one show a larger size than the normal 931.51GB? I can't do a sector by sector clone if the internal 1TB is larger than the replacement 1TB drive.
Q2: Can you point me to where I can purchase a replacement that will have exactly 953.86GB for a 1TB SSD Drive? Thank you.
Q3: Will this computer handle 2TB internal SSD M.2 drive instead?
Thank you for any assistance. If this is not the proper area to query please direct me.
No Events found!
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 9th, 2022 10:00
Q1: Maybe an extra (hidden OEM) partition? Doesn't really matter as most cloning software will allow slight partition adjustments.
You can always Nuke-and-Pave (remove all partitions) and clean-install Windows.
Finally, a SSD this old should be Over-Provisioned by now anyway (about 5% free un-partitioned raw-space at end of drive)
Q3: Yes.
bitpusher1010
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
March 9th, 2022 10:00
3. This url below specifies that the internal SSD can only be 1TB. Where can you point me to that says 2TB
https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/alienware-aurora-r6-desktop/alienware-aurora-r6-setupandspecs/storage
Vanadiel
8 Professor
•
7.1K Posts
•
29.7K Points
0
March 9th, 2022 11:00
You can always shrink the partition to 930 GB before cloning the drive.
The difference is likely due to either disk compression, or block size of the file system used.
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 9th, 2022 17:00
No, not really.
These low disk-capacities are in most Dell Manuals. It's because they needed a number, so they use the largest size they are selling/installing at the moment.
My post was based on the fact that I have an Aurora-R6.
Capacity:
SSD Up to 1 TB
U.2 Up to 960 GB
Hard drive Up to 2 TB
The manual is actually pretty comical. According to it, you can have a larger HDD, than SSD. And the U.2 SSD (most advanced and highest-capacity SSD at the time) has to be less than 1tb.
They should be more like this (and this is conservative):
NVMe SSD Up to 2 TB
SATA 2.5-inch SSD Up to 4TB
U.2 SSD Up to 8 TB
Hard drive Up to 6 TB
bitpusher1010
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
0
March 9th, 2022 18:00
Tesla1856 ...what a revelation for me. I think it is soooooo wrong that they don't put the true technical specifications of the hardware.Thank you for this.Just to confirm, you too have an Aurora R6 and have used NVMe M.2 SSD Up to 2 TB or greater?
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 9th, 2022 19:00
1. Back in 2017, NVMe was new-tech and 1tb was large and expensive. I think the U.2 spec was a typo.
This isn't IDE or SATA. NVMe was built for the future. Initialize as GPT and format as NTFS. I think the only real limit is your wallet.
2. Yes, with its original C-Drive, a:
Samsung PM-961 512gb SSD (M.2 PCIe NVMe) TLC/EVO-OEM
Go ahead and get a 1-tb NVMe-SSD if you want. That will make a good C-Drive.
3. Not yet. We are getting a new system here, so Aurora-R6 is being demoted-down. The Aurora-R6 will become my daily-driver (Development, Accounting, etc).
- I'll keep the Samsung PM-961 512gb as C-drive. I would swap it out, but I'm not sure where-else to use it. It's a good size for a bootable OS-drive. It's very fast.
- I plan to get a PCIe Addin-card with to hold 1-or-2 NVMe-SSD. I'll populate with 1-tb or 2-tb NVMe SSD(s). A x4-x8 card . It goes in the other x16 slot.
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 10th, 2022 09:00
and a 2.5inch SATA-SSDs for Data & Media Files as E-Drive. Just because I have a 1-tb one to use there, and also ... no more spinning-platter HDD inside this machine.
Hey @bitpusher1010 ,
What is your current BIOS version on your Aurora-R6? You can check it with msinfo32 .
It's been working fine, so previous-user stopped around v1.0.5 . However, I thought now might be a good time to go ahead and catch-it-up further (before the files disappear from dell.com/support ).
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 10th, 2022 11:00
Thanks.
Yeah, looks like that is the latest .... with the Intel-patching for Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities ... that Dell is planning to do for this machine.
bitpusher1010
1 Rookie
•
6 Posts
1
March 10th, 2022 11:00
Firmware version 1.0.23, Dated 6/11/20
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 10th, 2022 12:00
On our Aurora-R6, I think our on-board M.2/NVMe port is PCIe-Gen3. Not sure if it has to be (for booting or whatever) but to keep it simple ... I will continue to use that as my C-Drive or main-OS drive.
To keep it price-reasonable ... but one last upgrade for my Aurora-R6 (Intel-i7/16gb/GTX-1070) , I want to add just one more NVMe-SSD to the system (likely Drive-D for games and audio/video encoding scratch disk/space.)
Something simple (but reliable) like this or this. These are both fairly popular brands. Looks like tech-complexity is simple/inexpensive with just one NVMe-SSD per-card/slot.
The rest of the system's drives will be 2.5inch SATA-3/600 SSD.
Tesla1856
10 Wizard
•
17.9K Posts
•
71.4K Points
0
March 10th, 2022 13:00
OK. I just bought this 2-tb NVMe SSD for my Aurora-R6.
In over 9-years, never had a problem with this brand (still using my old 830's). Notice 5-year warranty and 1200-TBW rating. It might not be cutting-edge 4x4-fast, but this 2019-model it is still very-plenty-fast ( 3500/3300 ). 2tb-NVMe-SSD storage for about the same price as 2.5inch-SATA-SSD.