SAMSUNG EVO 500GB install on Dell XPS 8700 special edition desktop

Just adding more information to my previous post.

I noticed that if I go back to the BIOS and change the SATA mode from AHCI to RAID, I can see both the Samsung 500GB SSD (boot drive/C:) and my 2TB HDD(D:). However, the performance is degraded.....defeats the purpose of adding SSD. It's recommended in this forum and others to always use AHCI when adding SSD drive.

So, I changed the SATA Mode to AHCI and hoping somebody can shed some lights on what is happening here. I really need to be able to use the 2TB HDD (actually remaining 1.8TB for storage only).  I'm not sure why SATA mode was originally configured as "RAID" since I have only a single 2TB drive.....unless the 32GB MSATA is configured in a RAID with a small partition (32GB) from the 2TB HDD. I really don't care about the 32GB MSATA.....if I can find a way to disable it. Just don't want to remove from computer if I don't have to.

could you please try to use the disk management to get the missing disk back? Good luck. :emotion-1:

Raid on is mainly for RST I think. 

Thanks for replying. I appreciate you.

Like I mentioned before, as long as SATA mode is set to AHCI, the drive never showed up in Windows...even in disk manager. So after further research, I leaned that SATA mode of "RAID" contains same function calls as "AHCI". So, I changed BIOS setting to "RAID', then I'm able to see the drive. I used disk manager to Create another volume (D:). I'm good now.

Would have loved to find out for sure from Dell XPS 8700 Special Edition owners that are configured with SSD from factory if indeed they use SATA mode=RAID.

Were you able to solve your problem and make the hard drive visible? Also, were you able to bring the Intel Smart and Start Technologies back to normal? I am planning on SSD drive installation too and I am eager to learn more about your experience.

I will look forward to hearing from you,

Yuri 

Yes, I got it working.

Here's a summary of what I did:

Not sure if you're installing the SSD on A DELL XPS desktop or another model. Either way, make a backup of the existing drive using dell provided "backup and recovery". I backed mine up on a 16GB flash drive.

In my case, I installed the SAMSUNG 500GB SSD drive as second drive  (D:) and reboot the desktop. I used the Samsung provided application to clone all partitions on the existing HDD onto the SSD. After that, I shutdown the desktop.

The boot drive from what I read needs to be connected to the first SATA connector on the motherboard. So, I unplugged the HDD (2TB) from the first SATAconnector and connected the 500GB SSD on this connector (SATA0). I left the HDD disconnected.  I successfully booted up on the SSD drive.

Note: I did not change the BIOS setting for SATA MODE. I left it at the default setting of "RAID".

Finally, I shutdown the desktop, connected the 2TB HDD on the second SATA connector on the mother board. Once I rebooted the PC, the HDD shows as drive D:

I used disk manager to reformat the 2TB. The Intel Smart Technologies shows all drives as working good.

While many people have said the BIOS needs to be changed to AHCI for SSD drive, I have found that if you plan to use regular HDD with your SSD, you will have to leave it a default value of "RAID" or the HDD will not be visible in windows.

Let me know if you need help when you do this. I can walk you through the process.

thanks for sharing your experience with us. It is very helpful. So after you installed a ssd drive, you did not change the BIOS settings, correct? Your BIOS settings with a new SSD Drive installed are set to IRST. Is it correct? What about Intel Rapid Start and Smart Technology are they working as well? Do you get any error messages?

many thanks,

Yuri

P.S. The reason I am asking you is that I am planning to have an SSD Drive installed as well in my Dell Inspirion 17R 1720 soon and I am gathering info on the processes. 

On my Dell XPS 8700 desktop, there are only 2 SATA MODE BIOS settings: AHCI or RAID. The default DEll settings with just the DELL 2TB HDD and 32GB MSATA was RAID. When I added the Samsung 550GB SATA, I left it on this default. I had previous changed it to AHCI but noticed when I boot onto Windows on the SSD drive, the original 2TB HDD was not visible. Since I really needed to use this HDD as my second drive, I had to go back to the BIOS and changed to default of "RAID". I did not have to do any configuration on the Intel Rapid Start. It automatically sees all drives and reports the status without error.

When I initially changed the BIOS to AHCI, the Intel Was reporting errors with status of the HDD. The only way to clear this error was to go back to the BIOS and change back to RAID.

NOTE: when you use the SATA MODE of "RAID", the SSD utility that comes with the SAMSUNG SSD drives (can't think of the name but it's used for optimizing the drive) reports error but I just ignore it.

many thanks for your prompt and detailed reply. Your experience is invaluable to me. My plan is to clone my hard drive and replace it with an SSD. I will let you know how it will go..

Yuri

c102690,

First of all many thanks for sharing your experience of installing SSD drive onto your computer. I found it very helpful. I've got a few more questions in regards to it though.

1. Is your computer performance better now with an SSD drive installed?
2. Is it better than having a mechanical drive with mSATA drive that comes with a computer when you buy it?
3. Did you change the bios settings before the cloning your hard drive or after? Or you didn't change them at all?
4. Is it correct that you can leave the BIOS settings the same and there will be no effect on your computer performance?

Many thanks,

Yuri

The 32 GB SSD is used as a cache, to accelerate the operation of the disk. This uses the Intel RST software and drivers, and operates in RAID mode. I would have disabled first this mode, from the Intel software.  If you are migrating the system to a larger SSD, you don´t need any special cache scheme. After you disable the mSATA cache mode, the 32 GB SSD should operate as a normal disk or SSD, you can keep it or unplug it.

Sorry for the late reply.

Yes, my computer is a little bit faster with the SSD. I have a new intel i7 (4th Generation processor). While I noticed a slight improvement with the SSD (I run the OS and all apps on the SSD), the performance WITHOUT the SSD was not bad at all. I just needed a little boost since I use Photoshop software for photo editing.

My computer came with 32MSATA +2TB HHD. Like another gentleman said, the MSATA is used as a cache to speedup write operation to the HDD. The combination of the MSATA +HDD provided good performance on my Dell desktop. I could have lived happily with this combination but wanted something a little better. The performance boost from using SSD is not too obvious.  While I have no regrets, sometimes I wonder if I would have saved the money I invested on the SSD. Fast processor and memory are the most important performance  factors followed by a fast access disk which MSATA cache + HDD can do but SSD does a little better.

There is no need to change your BIOS. Once you connect the SSD as your secondary disk, you do not need to change the bios. Just boot up on the HDD and clone the OS to the SSD drive. You can then shutdown the PC, disconnect the HDD, connect the SSD to the SATA connector initially used by the HDD. You want the boot device to use the first SATA connector. Then boot with ONLY the SSD connected to ensure you can boot from this device.

Then you can shutdown and connect the HDD as secondary. No BIOS changes needed. Leave as RAID...default settings. The only reason to change the BIOS is if you are just using the SSD as the only drive on the computer.

Also, the magician software provided by Samsung to optimize SSD performance DOES NOT WORK with default BIOS setting of "RAID". The Magician software would not see the SSD. I get warning when I boot up but I just click OK to get rid of it.

I wish I have the ability to tweak the SSD settings with the MAGICIAN software from Samsung to optimize performance of the SSD but the only way to get this software to work is to set BIOS settings to AHCI which prevents me from using my 2TB HDD. So, I chose less than optimal performance in other to be able to use my 2TB HDD which helps with photo storage.

many thanks for your reply. I"ve got Adobe Master Collection CS6 installed on my computer and the whole reason to replace a mechanical hard drive with an SSD is to get faster access to Photoshop and InDesign. Currently the boot time on my laptop Inspiron 17R is very fast but it takes a while to open Photoshop, Illustrate or InDesign. I am willing to invest a bit of money to have a better user experience since I use these programs very often. Currently, I am debating between cloning or a clean windows 8.1 PRO installation. I would probably do a clean installation but unfortunately, there is not a lot of info on the step by step process for  Inspiron 17R, 1720. At the moment, I am thinking of cloning since it seems to be a straight forward process and if I get a quick access to my graphic design programs it will be worth a try. 

many thanks for your response and your guidance. I really appreciate it.

Yuri 

Once I get enough information about the clean installation on the Inspiron 17R, I will proceed further. My plan is to buy a Windows 8.1 PRO Disk from Amazon and SSD. I think it is worth trying as long as I  can access my programs quicker.  I will post my experience here once I am done. However, If I fail, I will try cloning then. I spend a lot of time on my computer so good experience means a lot to me..

Yuri 

Thanks Yuri. I don't mind sharing my experience. I learned a lot reading posts from others and the least I could do is to try to help others the same way I was helped.

Good luck with your install.

Clean install seems to be the cleanest way to get stable installation. You might want to use Dell backup to backup current system onto a flash drive or DVD (depending on the one your system supports). Then you will also need a media which Dell doesn't provide.

Cloning is easier and more straight forward. I have not heard of many issues with this option.

Not sure if you know this: off the shelf windows CD WILL NOT WORK on dell computers. You must buy OEM disk/CDs from Dell....actually Dell might be able to send you one for your particular machine for a fee.

You might be better off cloning because of funny licensing issues with windows 8. You just can't purchase install CD and re-install on your PC. I believe COA is now embedded with the BIOS. Check Microsoft web site or better yet, call Dell for assistance if you need to re-install.