XPS 15 9500 - RAID, 2 NVMe slots?

Question

I have seen ads for new XPS 15 9500 laptops sold by third parties with 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB RAID configurations, presuembaly being upgraded by the third parties. I have seen definite documentation that this model does have two NVMe slots. I have also read that one slot is ? unavailable if the large (86Wh) battery is installed.

Can anyone definitively clear this up:

1. Do any of Dell's own configurations feature twin drives in RAID?
2. Is the second slot available to add a second NVMe drive, even with the larger battery installed?
3. Can the second NVMe drive be used as an independent drive, i.e. NOT in RAID configuration?

Thanks, JW

Tesla1856 · Answer

I don't know, but I'll tell you this ... a good NVMe SSD is way-fast and completely removes the need for RAID. And if you want redundancy, you should be backing-up/imaging the laptop anyway instead.

emwells · Answer

I think you may be confusing the 9500 with the older 9550, 9560, or 9750.

On those laptops (i used a 9550 for a while) you had one Nvme slot, and the choice of a big battery or a small battery and a 2.5" sata ssd.

On this years 9500 - they all have two nvme m.2 slots, and there is no mention of a 2.5" drive option.

There are two different batteries offered, but it doesn't seem to affect the storage the way it did in previous systems.
source: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-15-9500-laptop/xps-15-9500-setup-and-specifications/storage?guid=guid-a00459e0-2a64-449c-9f02-581bf2e3c2cf&lang=en-us

Earlier point remains: Raid 0 for speed is silly when you can get >3000 mbps, Raid 1 for redundancy isn't helpful if you lose or damage your laptop. You should be backing up to the cloud or to a storage media you don't carry around with you.

It might be nice to create one logical partition that spans the two drives so that you don't have to deal with two different volumes, but afaik you don't need RAID to do that.

XPS

XPS 15 9500 - RAID, 2 NVMe slots?

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