m15 R3, SSD Upgrade Options

Question

Hello,

I just purchased a new m15 R3 with a 1TB SSD installed. I wanted to know what my upgrade options were. I checked online and saw some users had posted that they faced compatibility issues and since I am going to be ordering these SSDs from another country I don't have the ability to return them if I ordered incorrectly.

My questions:

1) I know there are 3 SSD slots what are the highest capacity SSDs that I can install?

2) Can you recommend any compatible high capacity SSDs from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk?

Thank you

fezj · Accepted Answer

Unfortunately I did not find any conclusive answer but I noticed that there is a company that is selling customized versions of this laptop and they offer a wide variety of SSD options which gives an indication that it should be fine, at least for those particular options.

Here’s the link:

https://www.hidevolution.com/custom-built-alienware-m15-r3-15-6-fhd-144hz-i7-10750h-rx-5500m-16gb-ram-black.html

I haven’t ordered an SSD yet, probably going to wait till early next year.

Good luck!

crimsom · Answer

Hi @fezj the quick answer is to get more of the 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs that you already have and are known to be compatible. This assumes that your existing 1TB is not a SATA SSD. Check your SSD support within Alienware m15 R3 Setup and Specifications at Alienware m15 R3 Documentation.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @fezj the Alienware m15 R3 Setup and Specifications, Table 6. Internal slots lists the two M.2 2230/2280 slots and the one M.2 2230 slot. It also includes links to knowledge base article SLN301626, How to distinguish the differences between M.2 cards and how to identify the card size and type. See also Table 10. Storage specifications.

Rayv88 · Answer

Did you find an answer to this?

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Rayv88  welcome to this user to user forum. Click on the @fezj avatar to see that this user only made one post, consequently nobody knows if fezj found an answer to this.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @fezj  thank you for sharing the hyperlink. Wow, this list says m15 R3 will accept 8TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drives. Our Alienware 17 R5 model was not listed.

findramon · Answer

Hello! I was able to successfully upgrade my Alienware 15 R3 laptop with the following:

1 x 2TB m.2 NVME Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD drive (in open NVME slot)

1 x 1TB m.2 2230 NVME Sabrent SSD drive in SSD-1 expansion slot (it is actually a 42mm slot but I found an extension plate to let me secure the drive properly

1 x 4TB Corsair SSD 2.5" SATA drive in existing drive bay (was able to confirm options from Corsair's website).

My factory configuration came with a 1 TB Toshiba m.2 NVME SSD drive and a 1 TB 7200 RPM Sata Drive. So I essentially went from 2 TB of storage across 2 drives to 8 TB of storage across 4 drives! I also am planning on using the clone utility from Samsung to upgrade my existing 1TB m.2 NVME boot drive for a total of 9 TB of storage. This will be great for my field work and archiving video & image files on the Sata SSD drive.

Other notes:

I saw a video on what to do with the smaller SSD m.2 slot. The video is wrong!

https://youtu.be/ZonwecwHZ60
(@9:30)

They tried fitting a B+M card into the SSD-1 slot which is for a standard M card. The only catch is that the SSD-1 m.2 slot is 42mm long and not 30mm long as referenced in this discussion thread. That means if you get a M.2 NVME 2230 card (which is what I did after reading this thread), it will not secure into the slot because it doesn't reach the screw housing. Thankfully, I found an extension plate on Amazon for $10- https://a.co/d/16UM3Rm

If considering a 2.5" Sata SSD upgrade from Crucial, they make it easy by filtering options based on your laptop. Here is the link to choose the right upgrade options for the Alienware 15 R3 laptop:

Alienware Alienware 15 R3 | Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | Crucial.com

All of this information is pretty much the same for other Alienware laptops that have the same expansion bays.

Cheers!

Alienware

m15 R3, SSD Upgrade Options

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