XPS 15 Touch 9530 Sata or mSata

To follow up on this thread, I just installed a Samsung 1TB mSATA card into my XPS 15 9530. This replaced the 512GB mSATA that shipped with my laptop. Took a few days of internet research to figure out how the hell to do the upgrade (there is some really BAD advice out there), but in the end it wasn't too too hard or messy.

So far, all is going well. Laptop boots same as before, no issues with having to reactivate any software (e.g., Windows). Must say, it sure is sweet seeing "706 GB free"! Right now, I'm copying a 98GB directory of photos onto the new mSATA -it's about 2/3 the way done. Seems to be just as fast as the 512GB version.

As for my old 512GB mSATA - I bought a slick little enclosure MydigitalSSD enclosure (for ~25$) which allows me to use the old mSATA as an external USB 3.0 drive (bus powered). That appears to be working just fine too.

I'm in similar situation and I would have liked to get some details on how to clone / replace installed mSata drive with a new one.

I just purchased a XPS 13 with 128GB mSata drive and bought a 250GB mSata that I want to replace it with. I also got the mSata enclosure from MydigitalSSD, since I believe it's necessary to clone the old hard drive on the new one.

So could you guide me through the steps quickly on how you managed to clone your old hard drive ? I don't have any Windows 8 installation cd etc, so I can only close the existing SDD.

Thanks!

Okay, I'll try to give you some help. But, be forewarned - it's not a quick or easy process! It will require some know-how regarding the logical structure of hard drives, and it will require the ability to work with very delicate electronics, using tools that you may not have (but probably can buy at your local hardware or tool store - I got my T6 torx driver at Ace Hardware). If you mess up while "operating" on your laptop, you could seriously damage or destroy it. And, I'm pretty sure opening the laptop yourself might void your warranty.

Do you feel you have the above knowledge and skills? Do you feel like rolling the dice??!! If so, I'll help you as much as I can. Otherwise, you should probably call Dell to see if they'll do the work for you, or hand the project over to your local "geek squad", e.g., at Best Buy or Fry's, etc.

Assuming you wish to continue, here is a rough outline of what you'll need to do:

1. Analyze your current mSATA drive to figure out what partitions it contains. This can be done using Windows 8's Disk Management utility.

2. Create a bootable USB flash drive for use in restoring the original factory image of your mSATA drive, in case you need to, i.e., things go really wrong. A 16GB flash drive should be sufficient.

3. Create a second bootable USB flash drive which will allow you to restore the Windows system image you are going to create in step 4. An 8GB flash drive should be sufficient.

4. Create a Windows system image of your current mSATA drive on an external USB hard drive. No, you can't use your new 256GB mSATA for this. You need a separate external USB drive that has at least as much free space as your original 128GB mSATA drive. I used a little Western Digital 2TB Passport drive.

5. Open up your laptop and remove the original mSATA drive. Most likely, your Dell owner's manual will provide detailed instructions for how to do this.

6. Insert the new mSATA drive, and close up your laptop. Again, your Dell manual should tell you how.

7. Boot using the bootable USB flash drive you created in step 3. You will have the option of restoring the WIndows system image you created in step 4 to your newly installed mSATA drive.

8. Once you finish restoring the Windows system image to your new mSATA, it should have the exact same logical partition structure as your original mSATA. Unfortunately, this means that your main partition will be the same size as before, and there will be bunch of unallocated space. In order to make use of the extra 128GB available on your new mSATA, you will need to resize your main partition. But, before you can resize it, you will most likely need to delete the OEM partition which follows the main partition - you can't expand a partition if there is another partition right after it. The OEM partition is where Dell stores all the info needed in case you want to reset your laptop to its factory default state. But, don't worry, you can use the bootable USB flash drive created in step 2 if you ever want to do a factory reset (which you probably won't ever want to do).

9. Once you delete the OEM partition and resize your main partition, you should be good to go!

Okay, so these are the rough instructions. Let me know if you wish to continue, and I'll explain clearly how to do each step - I know some of them probably seem confusing at this point.

BTW, it took me several days of web research to figure all of this out. You have to be really careful because there's a bunch of very BAD advice out there. The method I outline above doesn't require any 3rd party software or tools, just what's built right into Windows 8. Also, it doesn't screw up the data on your original mSATA, meaning that you can reinstall it, if necessary, and be right back where you started.

If you are successful in upgrading to your new 256GB mSATA, then you can put your original 128GB mSATA into your MyDigitalSSD enclosure and use it as a USB 3.0 external drive.

Finally, I should mention that, since I upgraded my XPS 15 9530 to a Samsung 1TB mSATA drive, I've had absolutely no problems. So, for me, it was a worthwhile exercise.

Regards.

Rob  B.,

I've been reading 

this thread and would like to get the full detailed instructions, if you don't mind.

I'll get me one of the 

MyDigitalSSD you mentioned and  couple of USB flash drives.  I already have 2TB my passport drive.

Thanks in advance for sharing.  Your efforts in searching the web, summarizing and sharing this information is sincerely and truly appreciated. 

Additional questions:

Is it possible to boot off of the original msata once it's swapped out and place in MyDigitalSSD via usb3?

If Dell designs or obtains a 91whr battery that has slightly modified dimensions that accomodates 2.5 SATA Drive, that would be great as then we could have 2 1TB drives installed ( 1TB msata & 1TB ssd ).

Also wish Dell XPS 15 9530 supported 32GB of memory ( 2x16GB modules ) because I use VMware to run multiple OSs simultaneously. 

Dell, if you monitor these threads and posts, please pass this information along.

Dell could make a lot of money saling modified 91whr batteries to existing customers and dual drives to new customers.

Please add support for 32GB memory ( 2×16GB ) to XPS 15 & 13.

If Dell implements those features, the XPS would be one of the most versatile systems.

Final two wishes:

Make XPS 13 with same or very similar specs as 15.

Make system similar to Surface Pro 3 that can handle 16 and 32GB of memory.

While I simply adore my XPS 15, XPS 13 would have been more practical for my needs because of portability.  I need something I can carry with me all time, anywhere.

I plan to keep XPS 15 and get Surface Pro 3 i7 512GB SSD couple of weeks after they're available in late August. 

I just opened up my Dell XPS 15 9530 and found that I have the bigger battery (yay!) but that obviously this means that I can't replace my SSD with a larger model (boo!). Even if I do purchase the smaller battery (boo!), there doesn't seem to even be a place for the SSD to plug in via the standard SSD interface. What can I do? My ideal, of course, is to keep the largest battery, but I also want to have the larger SSD. What are my options? Thanks!

My number 1 concern is should any of the devices go down I want to be able to recover quickly. 

I'm also learning and will be setting up ESXi server running vShphere.  Purchased three a Dell T110II.  Another option would be to create several VMs ( Virtual Machines ) running Win 8.1 and I should be able to remote log in from any laptop to access my environment. 

One last thought I had is, it should be possible to create fully bootable Win 8.1 operating system environment on USB 3 Thumb drive or portable USB 3 drive.

If last option listed above is doable, then I can walk up to any XPS 15 9530 or similarly configured XPS 15 and boot from external USB 3 device ( thumb or portable drive ).

Apologize for any typos or grammatical errors.  I'm writing this from cell phone and it's difficult to see...

While I like idea of longer battery life.  I think I may be leaning towards system with two drives more and shorter battery life.  I'm thinking of replacing both 32GB with 1TB mSATA and the 1TB HDD with 1TB SDD.

That'll increase system cost by $800-1000, but I'll have ~2TB of storage and I should be able to clone 1TB mSATA boot, system and recovery partitions to 1TB SSD so I can boot from either drive while preserving all configurations in event either drive dies.

Side note:

I plan to get Surface Pro 3 mid September as carry everywhere device.  Fact they'll all be running windows 8.1 with touch screen is bonus.  Tablets are good but Surface Pro 3 is portable, light and full fledge pc... In tablet format.

Based on what I've read if I log on with windows email account my startup screen and many other setting should automatically transfer over.

I had no idea that there was such a thing as msata. My 1tb Samsung msata is on the way. 

Thanks csells for sharing with me your experience with XPS. I am just asking because I see a lot negative reviews related to specific issues.

I would really appreciate if you (or someone with the knowledge) could answer my questions above (whether mSATA port and mSATA SSD is SATA-III OR SATA-II)?

@csells That means you have the model with 512gb mSATA, right? You could probably replace the mSATA SSD with a larger one. For example, Samsung SSD EVO mSATA supports up to 1TB. 

Is it possible to edit a message once it's been posted.

I've purchased both versions of the Dell XPS 15:

I7-4702HQ : 16GB : 91Whr : 512GB mSATA

i7-4712HQ : 16GB : 61Whr : 32GB mSATA and 1TB HDD system

512GB mSATA drive died after I spent an enormous amount of time configuring it and getting it perfectly tuned to way I liked it.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on phone  with Dell ~10hrs total/ multiple calls.

They couldn't fix drive and it would take 21 says to get 512GB replaced.  So I bought a 1TB mSATA replacement.

I got system up and running, fully  configured, multiple system image backups with 1TB drive.  I even created virtual machine that is a clone of the laptop running on the laptop using VMware Workstation 10.

What I want to know is how to copy this environment over to system with 32GB mSATA.   Is it possible to clone 1TB mSATA from one system to the 1TB HDD on the other system and have that system ( one with 1TB HDD ) boot and run using all configurations and setups and Start screen icons etc...

Hi Rob,

I know that's an old post, but could you please confirm that XPS 15 9530 motherboard supports SATA III (6gb/s) and whether the 512GB mSATA SSD pre-installed is SATA III too?

If you know, would my Samsung 840 Pro 512gb SSD be faster than the mSATA SSD? Maybe, I'll buy the model coming with HDD and replace it.

Generally, are you happy with XPS 15? What worries me is that I see a lot of reviews by customers complaining about different issues with these laptops e.g. wifi connectivty loss, noise when battery reaches 100% and having charger plugged in, motherboard replacements etc.

 I really appreciate it if you could spare a couple of minutes to answer since you are already a user of this laptop. I want to be sure before buying it.

Thanks a lot.