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XPS 8940, upgrade M.2 SSD from 256GB to 1TB
My XPS 8940 currently has a C: M.2 SSD Boot Drive: NVMe BC511 NVMe SK Hynix 256 GB boot drive and 2 TB SATA storage drive. My C: drive is full, so I want to upgrade it to a 1 TB M.2 SSD.
A few Questions:
1. What M.2 SSD 1 TB Manufacturer P/N is compatible for this upgrade and what is most recommended?
2. How do I go about cloning my existing 256 GB boot drive to the new 1 TB SSD? I have Acronis True Image. Will that work for doing the clone? Or is there another utility that works better for this purpose?
3. Do I need a USB adapter to hold the new SSD while it is being written?
the bbdude
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September 1st, 2022 13:00
I am able to run Samsung Magician and it does recognize that I have a Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1 TB installed. It does say, under NVMe Driver : Unknown. I don't know if this is a problem ie I don't know if it implies sub-optimum performance ... but I am glad to see that it is operating ok, as far as I can tell. I'm not noticing any drop in performance from the previous operation with the SK hynix 256 SSD (now replaced).
Tesla1856
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September 1st, 2022 13:00
1. Yeah, that sounds about like my experiences with trying it a couple of times (and other have posted similar). Some people say you can trick-it or massage-it into working, but I've never had any luck with that.
Anyway, that is why I posted to "clean-install" if you want to switch it. These are the days of UEFI, AHCI, SecureBoot, Windows Boot-Manager, etc ...
Finally, I use my computers for real-things (not just play time) so I tend to only do things that are guaranteed to work. Especially with things involving the main disk sub-system. Any corruption (or less than 100% functional) would be a big hassle for me as time-is-money.
2. I've wondered that myself. But it appears to be connected somehow ... at least on Dells and Alienwares.
Vic384
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September 1st, 2022 15:00
@the bbdude I am glad Samsung Magician is working for you. Previous versions of Samsung Magician would run but it would complain that SATA operation was not set the AHCI. Samsung Magician can also update the SSD firmware, I don't know if that will work if SATA operation is not set to AHCI. My experience with Samsung Magician in RAID mode happened many years ago with SATA drives so I am not sure if things have changed. This article tells how to fix Samsung Magician not supported issues, one issue being RAID mode: https://www.ubackup.com/articles/samsung-magician-this-drive-is-not-supported.html
the bbdude
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September 1st, 2022 16:00
Vic384 - Yes - Samsung Magician does show me for the Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1 TB : Firmware : 4B2QEXM7 : Latest Version/