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XPS 8700 SSD to replace installed HDD
I just purchased an XPS 8700 with Windows 8.1 and wish to replace the HDD which came with the machine and use the SanDisk Ultra II Solid State Drives (SSD) 240 GB http://www.sandisk.com/products/ssd/sata/ultra-ii 1. This is smaller than the 1 TB that came with the system, but it plenty large enough for what I need. 2. The pricing and the speed are very attractive. Not clear what I need to install on the XPS 8700. 1. I have the 8.1 Recovery Media from DELL 2. I see the 5 options for Dell Backup and Recovery Should I create each of those before installing the SSD? Clone software is an option for the SSD to clone the HDD to the SSD. Is that the best option, or should I start from scratch, and if so how do I get all the right partitions on the SSD? Will I end up with an original like install?
vchoe69
9 Posts
0
August 28th, 2014 19:00
I did just that. I bought a PNY XLR8 480gb SSD to replace my 500gb HDD. I bought a Apercorn SATA3 USB 3 cable and EZgig software to clone my HDD. I did a defrag of my HDD first.
Then I plugged the adapter cable to my SSD drive. Plugged in the USB3 end to a USB3 port on my Vostro 3550. I started the EZgig IV software for windows and followed the 1, 2, 3 steps. Using USB 3 was amazingly fast. About 45 minutes for 480gb from start to finish.
I then powered down the laptop, removed the battery, opened the HDD drive cover and carefully removed the HDD (mine had 2 screws holding the mounting sides to the HDD.
IMPORTANT: Place the SSD the same way up as your HDD BEFORE removing the mounting hard ware.
I mounted the SSD mounting hardware as I took off the HDD from the Vostro 3550.. Slid the SSD onto the connector and remounted the hold down screws
On my wife's HP, the HDD was wedged in with a rubber gasket, so no screws to remove.
I bought a USB 3 enclosure and put my 500gb hdd to use as a backup drive.
For my wife's newer HP Win 8.1, I bought a 480gb ssd and did the same thing. Only her HP had a 1TB HDD. I was a little more hesitanr. But after an hour, I was finished. I also put her 1tb HDD in a USB3 enclosure so she can save her geneology research to the 1TB HDD.
A few observations:
* you cannot use the Apercorn SATA3 USB3 cable as a HDD drive.
* you cannot "see" your external drive with Windows Explorer.
* faster boot time
* DO NOT defrag a SSD so turn off defrag in your optimisztion software
* USB 3 has a 10-14MB/S transfer rate over USB 2 HDD
* use DISK MANAGER to reclaim all those partitions in the system HDD for the full drive.
* you can resell the Apercorn USB 3 SATA cable on eBay to recover the cost.
* Do not buy the Apercorn USB 3 enclosure upgrade kit. The enclosure cannot be used as an external HDD case.
bgoodbody
57 Posts
0
August 28th, 2014 19:00
WWCC
5 Posts
0
June 10th, 2015 17:00
Yes, my clone copied everything. Super simple, and I had a lot of doubts the first time.
I upgraded to a 500 GB Samsung SSD EVO. First, I removed the boot drive from the XPS 8700. Then, I used my older PC as the platform to clone the boot drive, using an EZ Doc2 station place both drives. My older pc only has USB 2. However, in lieu of free software I coughed up the money and bought a license for HDClone. I previously used it, so I knew the steps. In my previous use, I went thru the learning curve.
I added a second SSD for data.
Once installed, I ran the Samsung software to reset any settings that should be changed for SSD. It's been running fine for a year now.
Everything copies over, except page files. So the final clone takes less space but all software, operating system, all settings, all browsers and their history, etc, are all cloned. The drives are essentially identical for swapping out. I would not know the difference other than it's much quieter. I bought a plastic mounting bracket for the smaller disk size, but frankly SSD are like a graham cracker, you can just let it sit in there, or tape it down. However, the plastic bracket works ok.
Going back to my first ever attempt. I bought HDClone because it did a perfect LIVE clone. I did not want to take my drive out to do the clone. I tried different popular cloning software, and settled on HDClone because the clone was totally accurate even though I continued to work on my PC. I tried it out first, I tried all of the options. I finally figured out which worked best. It took a little bit of time, but much faster than some of the competitors. I think I paid 60 some dollars for it. I get updates whenever they do an update. Their security precautions make it a bit difficult sometimes, but they answered email within a day.