XPS One 2720, mSATA drive upgrade to larger

  To provide the best of our support, start a private/direct message with us and we will be happy to help you.

Re: What prevents a larger than 265GB drive from being installed?  Is it a BIOS issue?
mSATA is just another physical form factor of sata drive.  as far as pc motherboard is concerned the mSATA socket is just another physical interface to connect a standard sata drive.  when an mSATA ssd is connected to the onboard socket, it is equivalent to a traditional 2.5 or 3.5 sata drive.  Unlike the traditional drive that receives separate sata power and sata data cables, mSATA has it all incorporated in the socket.  There is no bios restriction on the mSATA ssd capacity, just like there is no restriction of 3.5 sata hdd capacity in this model.

the technology to make the ssd has nothing to do with mobo.  you can certainly use a sata ssd of newer technology and bear in mind the max speed is still limited by motherboard.

Hello, I see you are looking for technical assistance. If you need our help, you can follow @dellcares and start a private/direct message with us and we will be happy to assist you.

I suggest you remove the bad spinning-HDD and the baby mSATA-SSD.

Install a new 2.5-inch SATA-3/600 SSD where the HDD was. You can get a 2tb one if you want.

Clean-install Windows. Done.

Same answer as this:

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8500-mSATA-SSD-replacement/m-p/8201099/highlight/true#M71963

Hello @Larry80 , I could understand your intention to replace the mSATA drive.  Unlike the XPS desktop 8500 and 8700 models, your machine was built on the platform similar like a laptop.  Therefore, your storage is limited to only 2 drives, so you want to use all the option you can get. 

Fortunately, your system will support 1tb mSATA drive.  The maximum bandwidth is 6 Gbps, same as SATA 3 drives.  The 3D NAND is just a manufacturing process for increasing the capacity, so you only need to get whichever mSATA available in your market.  If you are looking for the best, I suggest to get a Samsung T5 portable and disassemble it for the mSATA inside.  That way, you will get a new and genuine SSD.  For the replacement process, this thread has some good pictures and info.

Afterward, you can replace your failing hard drive with a new hard drive or SSD, your choice.  The only change in BIOS is to set SATA operation to AHCI.  

Let us know the result as it would benefit other members with similar questions.

Thank you for the reply. Good news for me!!  My second all in 1 has a failing hard drive so I will try and do it first. I will do a C drive back up to our MS cloud and then try and make an ISO file of the thing on a large flash drive, as a big back up. Then I am getting to be an expert at opening the Dell XPS One 2720 remove and reinstall the Msata with a much larger one. Ther remove the hard drive. So that it doesn't try and reinstall the old C drive again on it; instead install it on the new larger M drive. Then after that is successful, install a large SSD drive. as D or E (has a DVD drive as well).   Any of this sound approximately correct? 

Thanks to all and yes, when I get it done I will try and post the steps and results to the community.

larry80

@Larry80  Just keep in mind that mSATA is old tech and no longer available on new motherboards. So if you install a large mSATA SSD in this PC, it won't be usable in any new PC in the future.

I agree with @Tesla1856. You'd be better off installing a 2.5" SATA SSD instead of an mSATA SSD and removing the 32-GB mSATA SSD. SATA is still being used and likely to be available on new motherboards for a long time. So, at some point you could move the 2.5" SATA SSD into another PC and be able to use it for routine storage, while an mSATA SSD would go to the scrap heap.

NOTE: If you plan to clone or image the existing HDD onto whatever drive you install, you should disable hard drive acceleration using the Intel Rapid Storage Tech (iRST) app first to break the cache that's currently on the 32-GB mSATA SSD before imaging the HDD. Otherwise, Windows won't be bootable from the new drive because files saved on the 32-GB mSATA SSD won't be available if you don't disable the cache.

8 Krypton, thanks for the reply; i is appreciated.  I am not particularly interested in using anything on a future purchase of newer hardware.  MSata drives are available at least from 16GB to 1TB and have in the past worked pretty well in these all-in-one pc's.  I just never understood how to actually get it done. I do now. And I do plan on a large SSD replacing the HDD in this computer as the interface will work equally as well but be significantly faster. One of the units will be used as my radio astronomy master controller, code generator, data reduction, etc and maybe even host to a VPN with an assignable url so that other astronomers can see the data as a web page on their client units where ever they are. And add to ths mix that heck, I am an old geezer now, way beyond my actuarial age. And besides it is kinda fun learning and doing this stuff.  So my plan is still the same, back up my HDD to my MS cloud storage, remove that hard drive, install a Msata with hopefully 3D nand construction (yes they are available) and then putting the contents of my hard drive onto the Msata. Then I will install the SSD as a replacement for teh HDD using the full or maybe partitioned unit with sports for the 4 telescopes planned. Each to have maybe its own data drive letter. I wilo use the other unit to do a lot of the code and development work such as building dashboards for each of the 4 units, configuring analysis code, etc. As well as doing my daily email, and goofing off activities... run of the mill daily activities. 

Bottomline is that the plan I have laid out is the plan I want to implement. I have looked at the size of the entire contents on my C drive right now and it will fit onto a 512 GB Msata and if I off load a lot of document and data files have plenty of room. Radio telescopes can generate a large pile of 1's and 0's with a 14 bit  or larger ADC unit running a serious fast  sample rates. I have a 6TB NAS where the raw data and processed data will eventually hang out.  

Hopefully now, everyone will be on the same page as me and I apologize for not explaining what and why I wanted to be able to do the things I asked for help on.  i will still keep on asking questions and posting results as I can get to them. 

Many thanks to all who can shed light on may past and future problems!

larry80

Can the msata 64Gb be replaced with a 512Gb or larger only. Leaving the secondary hdd alone. IOW what is the max size Msata compatible with this unit. (dell xps one 2720)

@tracyoverman  - Are you sure the 64 GB mSATA SSD is the boot (C:) drive? That seems much too small for the boot drive plus all your apps and personal files.

Typically an mSATA SSD is only used as a cache drive to speed up PC's performance because the boot drive is a slow HDD.

You need to know exactly which drive is which before you do anything. If the 64 GB mSATA is currently used as a cache drive, you just can't swap it for a bigger drive, without reconfiguring Windows, because you'd make the PC unbootable. This can be done, but what would be the point of installing a larger mSATA SSD unless you move Windows, apps and personal files off the HDD and onto the new mSATA SSD? That would allow you to use the HDD for storage.

If you need more storage space, you might be better off reconfiguring Windows, and then removing the mSATA SSD completely and replacing the HDD with a large SATA SSD.