The 17 R2 motherboard is designed for DDR3L RAM and cannot accept a different type of RAM, such as DDR4.
The 17 R2 Specification says the motherboard has four M.2 PCIe sockets with SATA III 6.0Gb/s interface (not NVMe).
YouTube video "Alienware 17 R2 RAM upgrade / install SSD M.2" shows installation of: Crucial by Micron 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3L 1866 MHz RAM (CT2K102464BF186D), and Crucial by Micron M.2 2280 MX500 SATA III 6.0Gb/s card (CT250MX500SSD4).
The 17 R2 HDD can be replaced by SSD SATA Crucial MX500 2TB enclosures or open tray, Dual-Slot M.2 Drive to SATA Adapter for 2.5inch Drive Bay.
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crimsom
7 Technologist
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6.1K Posts
1
June 3rd, 2021 18:00
Hi @D-Hobbs welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support.
Support for Alienware 17 R2 Documentation.
The 17 R2 motherboard is designed for DDR3L RAM and cannot accept a different type of RAM, such as DDR4.
The 17 R2 Specification says the motherboard has four M.2 PCIe sockets with SATA III 6.0Gb/s interface (not NVMe).
YouTube video "Alienware 17 R2 RAM upgrade / install SSD M.2" shows installation of:
Crucial by Micron 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3L 1866 MHz RAM (CT2K102464BF186D), and
Crucial by Micron M.2 2280 MX500 SATA III 6.0Gb/s card (CT250MX500SSD4).
The 17 R2 HDD can be replaced by SSD SATA Crucial MX500 2TB enclosures or open tray, Dual-Slot M.2 Drive to SATA Adapter for 2.5inch Drive Bay.
Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.
A51-06
5 Practitioner
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3.1K Posts
0
June 5th, 2021 13:00
You technically could add like a 2Tb HDD that spins at 7200RPM and maybe 1 or 2 M.2 SSDs that are 256Gb each.
D-Hobbs
1 Rookie
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2 Posts
1
June 5th, 2021 13:00
Thank you so much that helped clarify a lot.