Adding SSD to XPS 17 L702x

Question

Just added an SSD to my XPS 17 L702x, and it was easy enough that I thought I'd mention here what I did.  Especially since I was looking for this sort of article here before I started on this, and couldn't find anything useful.  I should add that I put an SSD in my XPS desktop about a year and a half ago, and it's doing great, so I already know the SSD ropes a bit, and how much performance improves when you do this. After a lot of research on SSD's, I ended going with an Intel 502 series 120GB model.   It's a new model, but it is SATA III, which is nice. When I put an SSD in my XPS desktop I did it with a fresh Windows 7 install.  That was a lot of work, and re-tweaking to get it back to where it was before I put in the SSD took a lot of time.  After going through all that, I decided to try an alternative method.  For my laptop, I was going to migrate the OS image on my C: drive to the SSD, so I had deliberately kept my C; drive slim (less than 40GB), and put anything large on the second hard drive.  This would preserve all the work that I had done on my laptop with updating drivers from the Dell site to improve it's stability (and that really did help to improve its stability), and all the customizing that I had done for personal use. After a lot of looking around at the various ways that other people had migrated their OS's to SSD's, I found that Paragon Migrate OS to SSD version 2 was mentioned here and there.  The thing that I liked about what I read was that it also takes care of disk alignment issues, so that I should get maximum SSD performance without a fresh install.  So I put in the SSD in place of the second hard drive, and ran the migration software.  It took about 5 minutes to write the C: drive contents to the SSD drive.  Most of the time doing this I spent fiddling with the many teensy-weensy screws involved with moving the disks around, that was the worst of it.   After the SSD had the contents of the C: drive migrated to it, I rebooted and went into the BIOS to set the laptop to boot off of the second hard drive, just to see what I had.  I was very happy to see the system boot from the SSD much more quickly, and then ran the Window Experience thing, and had my SSD register a 7.9 on that simple benchmark.  The older SSD on my XPS desktop registered a 7.7, this indicated to me that the newer SSD was indeed faster.   Everything looked sane...I did notice that the migration software did not migrate the recovery (Dell) partition to the SSD, but now I also have the original C: drive as a spare hard drive if I need to recover the system.  That strikes me as better than the Dell recovery partition, but that's just my opinion. Now I took out the old C: drive (the first hard drive), moved the SSD to where it was, and put the old second hard drive back in.  And rebooted, stopping at the BIOS to change it to boot from the first hard drive. At this point I was pretty happy, and proceeded to get rid of some stuff off the SSD, decreasing the paging file from 8GB to 1GB (since I have 8GB of main memory, I don't expect to ever need to swap to run stuff), turned off hibernation and got rid of the hibernation file (since I'm perfectly happy with the time to wake from sleep with an SSD), and turned down the system recovery maximum space from 5% to 3%.  I also downloaded the Intel SSD Toolbox, very useful thing to have with an Intel SSD *smile*.  The Intel SSD Toolbox did one more little tuning tweak for me.  This all left me with a very fast, solid laptop, with less than 20GB on the C: in use, lots of space for future OS and program expansion.  And still have the 500GB second hard drive. So the end result is that I'm much happier with my laptop now just about everything goes at top speed *smile*.  The laptop already had a nice processor and memory, this just adds speed for boot and for bringing up programs...for just about anything where the disk is involved.

Jenda · Answer

Thanks for a nice description of how to - exactly I was looking for. I am thinking to get XPS 17 L702x next month. Have you noticed, by adding the ssd, that the notebook was getting less warm? In the reviews I read that XPS 17 L702x gets pretty warm. Just yesterday on my old Inspiron the HD broke (after years in warm condition). The heat is my concern. Any idea or suggestion ( I wont play any games)?

Erik -Belgium- · Answer

Hey, thanks for your review. I've ordered a XPS L702x (2x500Gb7200rpm, 8Gb, GT555M, FHD) a few days ago and ordered a Samsung 830 series (128Gb) SSD somewhere else. I'm not really into 'computers' and was planning on using OS migration software as well...the way you describe it here really helps me out.

An SSD of 128Gb doesn't sound that great , but the laptop I have now (ThinkPad A31) only has an HDD of 30Gb and usb 1.1... so for me it's a giant leap!! I've also planned to keep the HDD that comes out to use as an OS backup and to solve any warranty issues.

Thx :-)

RyanMM · Answer

Does the XPS come with the mounting accessories for the second hard drive, or do you have to order some part separately for that?

Erik -Belgium- · Answer

XPS 17' has two HDD/SSD slots, don't know about 15' versions. Mounting accessories usually come with your SSD...at  Samsung for instance, you can order an 830N or a 830D version where N stands for notebook and D desktop with all accessories included.

Erik -Belgium- · Answer

Correction, after actually installing the SSD...

I had to use the bracket from the HDD, that came out, to install the SSD. It was not included in the Samsung 830N set.

Other info for whomever needs it:

- I did a clean OS install after placing the SSD. As an option I bought an OS installation DVD to come with the laptop and I used the included Dell driver utility disk to restore everything (leaving out the crap). It took about 2,5 hours for the complete installation.

- Before installing the SSD, I had a windows experience index of 5,9 (bottleneck was the HDD 7200rpm)... after installation it gave a 6,9 score (the bottleneck is now the GT555M videocard).

- Having an XPS L702x and Windows7 for the first time I also encountered a problem using a gadget to monitor the GPU temperature. It made my fan go from low to high speed (on and of, on and of,...) about 5 times every minute or so...really very annoying. I contacted Dell for this problem (not knowing the gadget caused it) and they gave immediate reply...so I'm possitive about the service they delivered.

- Some more numbers: start up from 0 to windows takes less than 20sec, starting iTunes takes just 2sec.

The only thing I miss is a backlit keyboard...I use AZERTY and it wasn't an option at Dell...but I found one on ebay...and a good install vid on youtube!

GAF777 · Answer

HI DOH_123

THANKS FOR YOUR POST ON INSTALLING A SSD

I JUST BOUGHT A DELL XPS 17 i7 WHICH HAS 2 HDD. YOUR POST WILL CERTAINLY HELP ME INSTALL AN SSD.

BESIDES THE FASTER STARTING UP OF THE PC WITH THE SSD, WILL GAMES LOAD UP FASTER TOO?

I HAVE MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR X WITH A LOT OF ADDED SCENERY AND AIRCRAFT AND IT TAKE LIKE 5 MINUTES TO LOAD.

THANKS AGAIN

GAF777

Frederic1976 · Answer

Hello Erik, i'm from Belgium too (Liège) and need your help. Can you give me your email ? Greetings Frederic

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