Aurora R9, number of drives supported?

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@fistfullofbeer wrote:

1. I am looking at buying the Aurora R9 with a 2TB m2 (NVMe SSD) drive and also a 2 TB HDD.

2. I was wondering, how many additional SATA3 drives I can use on this machine. 

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1. Nice. But why put ANY spinning-hdd in there? (large SATA SSDs are cheap).

2. Two, in the bottom.

Download PDF manuals.

The motherboard supports up to 4 SATA drives.  The R9 case has HDD enclosures for 2 x 2.5", and 1 x 3.5" drives.  The fourth SATA connector on the motherboard is a carryover from the R7/R8, which supported an internal optical drive.  The R9 doesn't, but Dell basically used the same z370 motherboard and internal case for the R7-9 models, so that's an extra SATA connection in the R9.  So you could use the 4th connector for a SATA M2 drive, and attach it via a dual NVME/SATA PCIE adapter to the x4 slot (they go for less than $20 on amazon).  The dual adapter would also allow for 1 additional M2 NVME drive.  That's a total of 4x SATA, and 2x M2 PCIe NVME drives. 

If you wanted to get carried away, you could get a PCIe switch for the lower x8 GPU slot, and add up to 4x additional M2 NVME drives as discussed here:  https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Does-the-aurora-r9-support-pcie-Bifurcation/m-p/7396090#M18766  In this scenario, I highly doubt you'd be able to use all PCIe drives plus the GPU simultaneously at full bandwidth. 

Thanks!

So looks like they have read/write of 500MB/s or higher. I am definitely looking at a 2 TB one since it seems it is not just plug-and-play for the 2nd M2 drive.

The one that’s in my machine is a 1TB Micron. 

I wish I had gone with 2tb. 

I think if I want to upgrade. I’ll need to purchase and install windows on the new one  

I think the mods should chime in here but I saw @Bmwpower603's photos of his R9 unboxing:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R9-arrival/m-p/7385162/highlight/true#M17935

Looks like Crucial P1? 

Thanks guys. Can I get information on what m2 drive ships stock with the Aurora R9? 

Some thoughts:

If capacity is a factor, then I'd recommend doing a mix of high performance NVMe for OS + programs and low cost SATA for storage SSDs. Examples:

1. Micron Crucial P1 1TB + MX500 2TB.

2. Samsung 970 Evo Plus 512GB + Crucial MX500 2TB

While it is tempting to just get one awesome MLC/ TLC drive with 2TB on it, the very nature of NAND flash storage is that it is promised death on the day the cells are fabricated. So you'd be better off hedging your bets with a few drives than to put all of your data eggs in one drive.

That doesn’t sound to hard. 

Someone mentioned adding smothering m.2 to a PCI express slot. 

If this is done. Does windows need to be installed on that new m.2? 

I also have a SSD drive in my old PC. First off, the power cable is a small sata. Which I don’t see in the r9 case. Secondly. The SSD that’s I have has windows 7 on it. Would I still be able to use that on my r9? I just need to boot from that drive at start up? And use the windows 7? I can’t just open files such as excel or Microsoft word through the windows 10?

Thanks for the info!

According to the r9 .pdf, the "capacity" of all hard drive options only goes up to 2 TB.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/alienware-aurora-r9-desktop/alienware-aurora-r9-setup-and-specifications/storage?guid=guid-e13e84f5-f76d-402c-aed6-1f4254d392b1&lang=en-us

So this means if I put a 3 TB SATA in there, it's not going to "work?" Any idea on why the capacity is listed at only 2 TB?

@Bufteeman There's a 2tb limit using legacy bios mode or MBR.  Dell has not officially validated any OEM drive over 2tb for use with this system.  Doesn't mean it won't work (as long as you don't use the above settings).  People using the R7 (it also uses the z370 mobo) have successfully used 6 tb sata drives for storage.

Thank you @Tesla1856 and @r72019 for educating me that we've moved forward so much. I'm still using the term MBR in my head. At least now I know those "viruses" like Michaelangelo will not harm us anymore because there's no more MBR to delete. 

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@Bufteeman wrote:

 

1. According to the r9 .pdf, the "capacity" of all hard drive options only goes up to 2 TB. Any idea on why the capacity is listed at only 2 TB?

2. So this means if I put a 3 TB SATA in there, it's not going to "work?" 

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1. Looks like a typo to me.

2. It will work. Initialize as GPT and then format as NTFS.

Thanks for response! Really appreciate it.

Aurora R9 largest capacity tested drives =

2TB HDD =
6HFW3 2TB Toshiba Mars, 7.2K,512E,SATA3,3.5"
JJWJ1 2TB Seagate V11X, 7.2K,512E,SATA3,3.5"

2TB SSD =
MHG36 2TB Samsung PM981A, NVMe SSD,PCIe-34,M.2,Height 2.38mm
MGHFP 2TB Toshiba XG5, NVMe 2280 SSD,PCIe-34,M.2,Height 2.23mm