C Drive size vs D Drive, Big Change

Ever since we introduced SSD, we have been doing this. Every OEM is going to this model of operation. You only want the operating system and perhaps Office and CAD installed on the faster SSD C drive. But even then, those Office and CAD documents should be saved to the 1TB sata drive or the cloud. All of your other applications should be installed on the 1TB sata drive.

I agree with Chris.  I can certainly see the frustration this would cause for someone who didn't t bother to check their PC's configuration spending hours installing things, but this is the standard configuration across the industry for systems that have both a small SSD and a large spinning drive, for exactly the reason Chris specifies -- it allows your OS and applications installed on the SSD to load quickly, while providing much less expensive bulk storage for your general data where performance isn't as much of a factor.  I'm not sure why you would WANT the OS installed on the larger disk -- and even if you do, hopefully you can at least acknowledge that what I've just described represents the far greater use case among the user population, as opposed to the rare cases of users who might want the OS on their large disk because they intend to use the SSD for some other small, very specific set of data where performance is even more important to them than their OS overall. The difference in system responsiveness between an OS running on an SSD and an OS running on a spinning disk is massive, so if these systems shipped the way you had assumed, customers would be griping that their systems seemed awfully slow given that they paid for an SSD, and those who figured out the underlying cause would shake their heads/fists at Dell for missing an obvious opportunity to deliver a better overall performance experience.

The only time the OS was installed on the larger disk on systems that included both types of storage is on systems that included VERY small SSDs (i.e. 32GB) that were set up to act as cache modules for the spinning disk -- but in that case the system doesn't directly expose the SSD anyway, so there's no danger of making the mistake you did.

Any chance you could attach a picture if your Disk Management window?  Use the snipping tool and attach using the rich formatting in the forum.

Make sure and expand it enough so we can read the description on the partitions..

Folks,  I could have dealt with this model appropriately had I only been made aware BEFORE I started migrations and program loads. That's entirely my point. Those folks buying new PC's that are used to the C drive being large just need a heads up....unless you paid the big bucks for a big SSD be careful what you put on C so it doesn't fill up on day three.  Come on Dell,  give your new or repeat customers a warning.  Easy peasy.

Chris knows more about Dell's procedures for installing the system than I do.  But I have not seen a 60 GB drive being set as the primary drive unless it was a tablet or some system with very limited storage capability.

Normally, a 60 GB drive is used for a pre-fetch type drive to speed up the larger spinner.  There have been quite a few folks who thought it would be cool to put their OS on a very small drive, which may work under certain circumstances.  Having such a small drive with the way Microsoft is doing Win 10 updates can cause problems.

I have never had an Alienware system but when I look at that system currently for sale, none have a 60 GB drive but do show a 128 GB drive.  I asked for something from you.  Could you please supply the picture of your Disk Management?  Also, have you ever reset or reinstalled that system?  

Hi Salty,  unfortunately I sent it back already but you're correct,  the SSD (C) was 128gb.

(128GB M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage))

After migrating data from my February 2014 Alienware 17 R1 and loading programs when I did the props on C is showed something like 61gb used out of 64gb capacity. I think the rest (64gb) of the C drive was dedicated to cache.   D of course was still empty.  My 2014 has 750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s + 80GB mSATA SSD Caching  and the 750gb drive is configured as C ("OS")and the SSD as D ("DATAPART 1").  The 750GB drive was configured as C and the SSD as D. Here to 64gb of D is dedicated to cache.  Hence my assumption the new one would be config'd like the 20014. Sigh

There was a time when 128 GB would have been fine.  But depending on your usage it can be easily exceeded.  I don't think I would try to use a drive smaller than 500 GB and I don't do a lot on my systems.

Hope it works out for you..