XPS 8930, 970 Evo SSD, RAM upgrade, instructions

Question

Hallo,

I would like to share my experience with upgrading the XPS 8930.

(what I will mention here is the result of reading a lot of your posts, of course there is more than one way to do what I did)

I ordered the XPS 8930 i7 8700/ 8 GB RAM/ GTX 1060/ 1 TB 7200 HDD (No SSD).

I bought the Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB from Amazon.

I created an image of the HDD using Macrium on an external USB hdd.

I switched to the AHCI mode in the bios using minimal booting in safe mode (explained beautifully somewhere here but I can't get the link at the moment). Win 10 booting from the HDD in the AHCI mode was normal.

I installed the ssd. You have to remove the graphics card to do that. Was not difficult at all. Dell put a screw to help fix the SSD.

The Samsung 970 Evo was recognized by BIOS immediately. installed Samsung magician and updated the ssd driver.

I cloned the OS from the HDD to SSD using Macrium. (Samsung software can also do it but it doesn't clone all partitions).

Selecting to boot from the ssd on the bios and win 10 loaded very quickly.

I wiped and formatted the HDD using EaseUS. Now the system boots by defaults from the SSD.

Bios update from ver. 10 to ver. 13 went smoothly.

Booting time is very quick (didnt measure but it is definitely less than 10 sec). The seq. (1 GB) read speed is 3500 MB/s, write 2500 MB/s.

Really like it.

I ordered RAM upgrade, I will share my experience when they arrive and get installed :).

Thanks guys for all the previous discussions.

Mdssac · Answer

I basically did the same thing. Did you have other stuff on the hdd? you cloned the OS ONLY from the HDD?  If so i didn't know you can pick and choose what you want to clone. Or i may have read it wrong?

maximos · Answer

macrium allows you to pick the partitions to be cloned. I cloned all the partitions on the hdd to the ssd.

maximos · Answer

RAM upgrade:

My XPS came with 8 GB RAM only (from Micron) CL 19, single rank.

I got the part number of the installed RAM using CPU-Z and purchased an identical one for 80 €.

Installed the new RAM in the white RAM bay.

Bios immediately identified a total 16 GB with 2666 MHz.

CPU-Z shows identical specs for both RAM sticks.

Now my XPS is geared with 16 GB RAM, 500 GB 970 Evo.

Mission accomplished :).

Buffaloguy86 · Answer

I expect my unit next week.  It comes with a 256gb SSD and a 1tb hard drive.  Tech tells me that the system boots off the ssd module.[m.2]  I plan to clone the SSD, replace it with the Samsung evo 970. [M.2] My only concern is what I am reading about raid.  It seems that these systems come with raid enabled.  Is this the case?  Also, I am not sure if optane memory is enabled which is another issue.  Any advice on raid switching to  ahci.  Thanks

maximos · Answer

Very easy to switch from RAID to ACHI (thanks to an amazing post here that I can't find :))

The defaults settings in bios is RAID

From windows, use the "msconfig" command to open the system configuration utility.

Under "boot", select "safe mode" and minimal.

Restart the computer and enter bios and change RAID to ACHI

System will restart in safe mode (now in the ACHI mode)

use the msconfig command again and reset the booting to normal again.

Now Win 10 is running normally under AHCI and you can clone that to the 970 Evo and use its features to the max (Samsung drivers work only under AHCI).

This is exactly what I did and worked perfectly.

Good luck :)

Dell-SreejithR · Answer

Thank you for your message. These models have RIAD enabled by default. Intel memory is an option available.   You can change from RAID to AHCI without reinstalling the OS.

Buffaloguy86 · Answer

Thanks.  I got the pc on Saturday and everything worked fine following your steps.  Another question.  I see I  have two addional drive bays.  I took a quick look and didn't see any free power connectors.  I am assuming there must be if they provide the expansion space.  Thanks again.

546insp · Answer

The power connectors are all there but not the data cables, you will need to buy them.

davidk1952 · Answer

I am receiving my xps 8930 tomorrow, I choose the Intel 7 8086 cpu, 32gb ram, 1TB ssd ( I am told it is an Intel NVME 7600p ssd) and a 2tb HDD. Windows 10 pro I have a Samsung 970 EVO NVME and a PCIE adapter card to install the ssd in a x4 Pcie slot. What is this talk about raid being set from the factory? I am using this as a Workstation for ProTools 12 My current plan is to use the 1TB Intel ssd for my OS and programs. I plan to use the Samsung and the PCIE adapter for my audio drive and the 2TB sata drive as a storage drive and system backups.

Am I going to have to change from a Raid configuration.. the system will arrive tomorrow and before I start anyting I want to find out for sure what I will need to do..

PS I was really surprised to hear that the 1TB ssd drive will be an Intel 7600p... . If I had to do it over, I may not have ordered the SSD from Dell, not much information on the Intel ssd available.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Buffaloguy86 · Answer

Hi

See the reply from Maimos above. I had to make the switch away from RAID to take advantage of the Samsung EVO drive. With your current configuration you may not have to do that. Maybe some others can shed some light on this.

MyForumNameOnDell · Answer

How did your SSD install go? I am planning on doing the same. I bought one of these adapters, hoping it will work with a Samsung 970 EVO 2 TB and give me full throughput of 3,500/2,500 MB/s:

https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B079546NPR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Buffaloguy86 · Answer

Upgrade went very well.  Followed the instructions that were posted here.  I didn't need the adapter as I replaced the 256gb with the 970 Evo.

MyForumNameOnDell · Answer

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I may have to do that if I can't get the full throughput from the EVO thru the adapter... still waiting on Amazon delivery of both before I can go in and break things.

Stileguru · Answer

Was your 8930 fitted with optane? Mine is, and I was looking at replacing the 16GB optane NVME with a 1TB Crucial NVME. From all the blogs I've seen, optane first needs disabling. Was this something you had to do before upgrading? Presumably you also had to reconfigure from RAID to AHCI. I only ask because you mentioned neither of these in you process.

davidk1952 · Answer

Not sure if this was directed at me or my set up, but to answer the question When I ordered the Dell, it came with a 1TB Intel (non optane) NVME ssd, and a 2TB 7200 rpm HDD. I have left the original SSD in the Dell, I purchased a StarTech x4 PCIE NVME adapter card, the Samsung EVO is installed in the Star Tech adapter card and inserted in the 8930 x4 PCIE slot. It is screaming fast, with read and write speeds of over 3200 MBs. The issue I am having has to do with the system reboot (not cold start) where when or if I do a reboot the system hangs, just stops, then, I do a power off with the power button and then a cold boot all is fine... I've been working with Dell on this and what I was last told is that I can not change the boot order or remove the 2nd ssd from the boot sequence and the bios sees the HDD but does not know how to get by it....

The system all seems to be working correctly other than when a reboot is necessary... which concerns me that if the system has a "Update" of software and needs to reboot to continue that does not happen... but I am trying various work around's I really want to be able to use the x4 PCIE adapter and ssd because it is extreamly fast... and so far, I"ve not seen any file corruption the few times I have had to do a hard turn off and cold boot...

XPS Desktops

XPS 8930, 970 Evo SSD, RAM upgrade, instructions

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