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May 25th, 2012 10:00
SSD upgrade for Alienware X51 without replacing existing 3.5TB HDD
A lot of folks have upgraded the X51 with an SSD by removing the existing 3.5" HD, replacing the 3.5" carriage with a dual 2.5" carriage adapter, and installing the SSD in the 2.5" carriage.
As far as I'm concerned this is a waste of perfectly good 1TB 3.5" HD and it is pretty easy to avoid. I've left the 3.5" HD in place and physically placed the 2.5" SSD on-top of the slot area of the DVD drive cage. This area is just big enough to hold the 2.5" SSD and it is held in place once the side-panel is re-installed. See my attached photo which shows were the SSD has been placed. The plastic case of the SSD will not short with the case, but if you're paranoid you can simply enclose it in paper or plastic.
I've installed the OS and programs on the Crucial M4 256MB 2.5" SSD and the 1TB 3.5" HD is being used for data storage.
I followed these steps for the installation:
1. The X51 provides a third unused SATA slot which can be used to connect to the SSD. However, the X51 does not come with an extra SATA power connector so this had to be installed separately. As per a web-site (can't remember the URL) I tapped into the existing mobo molex connector (under the DVD drive) to get the SATA power. In the original configuration the female mobo molex connector supplies power to the 3.5" HD and the DVD drive. You'll need a Y-connector cable (P/N StarTech PYO1LP4SATA on Amazon) which has a male molex on one end, and a female molex and SATA power connector on the other end.
Detach the original 3.5" HD/DVD drive power cable from the mobo female molex connector, connect the male molex connector of the new cable into the mobo molex connector, and finally connect the original 3.5" HD/DVD drive power male molex connector into the female molex connector of the new cable. You'll be left with a SATA power connector that can be used for the SSD.
2. Detach the data SATA connector of the 3.5" HD from the mobo to disable it during installation of the SSD.
3. Use a new SATA data-cable and connect SSD to the extra SATA port on the mobo. Also, connect the SATA power cable to the SSD.
4. Place supplied Alienware Windows CD into DVD drive and ensure SATA mode is set to UEFI in BIOS and boot order is set to UEFI DVD - this can be chosen by pressing F2 during boot-up. Using UEFI mode ensures the Windows will automatically make a 100 MB EFI partition in the SSD along with the OS partition. This will also apparently format the drive with GUID (GPT) partition table which apparently is the "wave of the future" as opposed to MBR partition for SATA legacy mode. There is a lot of debate regarding GPT (new) vs MBR (old and best compatibility) and I believe the 3.5" HD is configure as GPT. I know the original HD has a 300 MB EFI partition along with DELLUTILITY and RECOVERY partition, but you will not get these and copying over these partitions is beyond the scope of this installation.
I also tried installing the OS using the SATA legacy mode (non UEFI) and that also worked fine. In that case Windows did not create a EFI partition.
5. Windows will install and you're fee to install your favourite games. Later you can reconnect the data SATA connector of the 3.5" HD to the mobo so that you can access that drive as well.
Have fun
Incompressible
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January 25th, 2013 13:00
@ kameix1
Wow .. that's a neat mod !
DELL-Pablo R
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January 25th, 2013 13:00
@Incompressible Thanks, I'll keep those in mind.
Grahamfluet
2 Posts
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February 23rd, 2013 13:00
Hi I'm wondering if, instead of a molex ->molex+sata adaptor, can i use a sata-> sata+sata adaptor? I can just plug it in between the DVD drive and it's sata connector?
And is a 7mm SSD required, or will a 9.5mm work fine?
thanks
Incompressible
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February 25th, 2013 23:00
@ Grahamfluet
The SSD uses a standard SATA connector, while the DVD drive uses a mini SATA connector (slimline), so I don't know if you can find a cable that can adapt mini SATA to standard SATA.
I'm using a Crucial M4 SSD which has 9.5 mm thickness, so it should be fine (however, see my warning above with regards to closing the panel).
R3D-M7ST
5 Posts
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April 7th, 2013 16:00
I'm struggling to find the cable adaptor for this mod, would someone be kind enough to post a link. Also what speed data cable is required?
Thanks in advance.
R3D-M7ST
5 Posts
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April 8th, 2013 02:00
Thanks for the links, I tried to search amazon for the part number but I wouldn't show up.
Thanks again.
Incompressible
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April 8th, 2013 02:00
I've mentioned the part number in my first post of this thread: P/N StarTech PYO1LP4SATA
You can get this from Amazon from the following link:
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-6-Inch-Power-Adapter-PYO1LP4SATA/dp/B001K9BEZU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365408426&sr=8-1&keywords=StarTech+PYO1LP4SATA
You will also need a regular SATA data cable. You can use the following:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WV5DKQ/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
MaustBoi
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August 28th, 2013 14:00
Great tutorial, I am definitely going to do this.
Just wondering if it is possible to migrate to the SSD without doing a fresh install of Windows? I was thinking of Getting an SSD that comes with a USB transfer tool so that I would not have to reinstall everything.
Thanks.
Incompressible
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August 29th, 2013 07:00
The only problem I can see is that if your current HD is paritioned in UEFI mode then your USB transfer tool may not be able to copy of the EFI parition over to the new HD - this partition gets created in UEFI mode and I'm guessing it's need for it to boot up properly in UEFI mode.
On the other hand if your current HD is paritioned in SATA Legacy mode then you should be able to migrate to the SSD.
No harm in trying - looking forward to your results !?
tsering1
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September 23rd, 2013 19:00
The mobo here has a male molex connector. Did you use a different y cable?
Incompressible
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September 25th, 2013 03:00
@tresing My mobo has a female molex connector and the cable P/N StarTech PYO1LP4SATA I had specified will work with the female molex connector.
I'm not sure why yeaber's photo shows a male molex connector - maybe they switched it on some mobos ?
sevengroove
2 Posts
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November 25th, 2013 21:00
Hi there,
Thanks for this guide! I'm planning on adding a SSD as well to my X51 R2 (which came with a 3.5" regular hdd). Couple of questions:
- the 330W power supply came across to me as just enough - while I was shopping for a desktop, most folks said to get at least 500W. Will the addition of a ssd change things much in terms of power in the setup?
- is heat generation/dissipation going to be an issue with the ssd chilling in between panels?
james6213
6 Posts
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February 7th, 2014 09:00
I really need help setting up mine it always says internal drive not found with my crucial 240gb SSD and it's really annoying me I have been trying for ages, I even put the SSD were the HDD was and it didn't work it said internal drive not found, so I really don't know what to do it works fine in my laptop :/
Here is some pictures of how I set it up
Please someone help this is urgent :/
Johnmcl7
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February 7th, 2014 09:00
When you say the drive is not found, where are you seeing that message - just on a normal startup? Can you see the drive in the bios? Have you tested the drive on another machine?
John
Johnmcl7
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February 7th, 2014 09:00
I realise you've probably sorted this already but thought it worth replying anyway for anyone else looking for similar information.
The power supply should be fine, graphics card manufacturers usually vastly overstate the power supply requirements to err on the side of safety and account for cheap overrated power supplies. Sites like Anandtech show total power consumption for graphics cards when coupled with a very power hungry processor and they're usually quite a lot below what the manufacturer quotes.
SSD's are very power efficient and produce little heat, some people compare the instantaneous power consumption of an SSD to an HDD but that's misleading as the average power consumption of an SSD is much lower because it doesn't need to spin up anything - it can just quickly do the required work and stop.
I haven't tried it myself but the X51 R2 (but not the original I believe) has an msata slot at the back middle of the machine so you can remove the wireless card and replace it with an msata ssd. The price premium for msata drives has dropped quite a bit so a 480GB msata SSD is about £30 more than the 2.5in version (Crucial M500), I was going to see how the heat from the HDD was in my X51 R2 as I was thinking it would be good to remove the HDD and help the graphics card but it seems fine so far.
John