Latitude 7424 SSD options

Sounds like the system has space for just a small (2242 size) SSD in card format (which is the capacity limitation; these are not made in larger capacities) plus one other drive - either a 2.5" hard drive (or SSD) or a sled containing a full-sized SSD.

The sled will not be included if you purchase the system without the larger capacity  SSD.  And such parts aren't sold by web - you'd need to call Dell Spare Parts for availability.

@ejn63, this is not the case. The specifications are as follows (taken from the Owner's Manual):

Primary: M.2 2280 PCIe x4 (Tool-free removable dual-sided M.2 compatible carrier sled)

Secondary: M.2 SATA 3 / M.2 2280 PCIe x4 (tool free removable storage)

There is also an option for a third SSD installed the same as secondary (using the optical drive location).

Primary SSD is NVMe "Class 40", secondary is SATA "Class 20".

In the manual, the sled appears to be identical for primary or secondary.

I just found the parts page for this machine and no sled is listed. There are a bunch of SSDs. Oddly, a 256GB NVMe Class 40 is $160, but a 512GB NVMe Class 40 is $530. Also, the price of a 1TB SATA drive is $300 less as a part than on the config page for the laptop.

Bruno -

I'm having the same issue, and really shocked at the lack of response by anyone from Dell.  I don't want to do a tear down as I'm still under warranty, but I've probably spent 20 hours on the phone with various dell departments, and can't get a coherent answer.

Dell:

How do you add an additional M2 or SSD drive to a 7424 that came with one?  Please provide a list of dell part numbers required so we can purchase.  This is really unacceptable for a laptop at this price range.

Thanks in advance.

I never bought one of these laptops because I could never get an answer from Dell to any of my concerns.

I am going through this same nightmare two years later after this initial ticket. I have spent way too much time with Dell on this and I need a solution or I will be forced to return the purchase of this expensive laptop and then reject their charge to my credit card.

I escalated to the top at Dell and I am no receiving support on this issue with what I project to be a very good outcome.

You can't really retrofit a secondary SSD into 7424 if it didn't originally come with one, it's theoretically possible but would be impractical and probably cost prohibitive.

Your laptop most likely doesn't have the board that is responsible for additional SSD/HDD/ODD, base configurations come without it, so if you don't have an optical drive you most likely won't have it, easiest way to check would be to remove the keyboard completely and in the hole you would see an S/C shaped printed cable attached to the motherboard if you do you're in luck if you see green MB directly you don't....

Installation of the missing borad would require a complete teardown(look up Optical drive r/i)

removing-the-optical-drive 

incidentally you could see the missing board & cable next to the ODD in the pictures for the R/I

So you'd need that board + the outer door for 2nd SSD carrier + SSD sled (the rail is always installed with Smart Card reader)

or board + ODD bay adapter for either 2.5 size or M.2 SATA style SSD + SSD sled

Although the original post is an old one. Just to point, if you have a WWAN slot, this can be used as an extra SSD. I bought a second hand  2016 Lattitude E5250 last year. Noticing the WWAN was a mini PCIe slot. Did a search to see if any SSD's would work as a 2nd back up drive. Found a YT vid "Dell Latitude 5401 - install second SSD into WWAN slot" He made the point to use the M.2 NVME PCIe type card. So looked on the bay and found  a cheap £10 TOSHIBA 128GB M.2 2230 PCIe NVME SSD Just to try out. My WWAN should have the 2242 SSD card.  Although too small to screw down. I was able  to make the card stable, using some masking tape and sticky pads. The SSD was recognised from start up, no messing with bios.  After usual setting up for any new HD, It worked perfect, and still working perfectly after 12 months. Speeds of the New drive has settled down to: Read = 850MBs   Write =600MBs     

Dear all,

I just replaced my e6420xfr by an refurbished 7424 with one M.2 SSD and CD/DVD drive. So far very happy with that.

But as everyone else in this forum too, I'm struggling with the mass storage options for 7424.

Here are my questions:

1) M.2 storage size
Official, the 7224 only supports up to 2 TB for each slot. But now there are 4 TB or even 8 TB M.2 devices available. Will the 7424 BIOS support them?

1.1) Background
Even in my very much older e6420xfr I installed a 2,5" 8 TB SSD as primary HD and it worked fine. I can not believe that a much younger 7424 will not accept large M.2 SSD´s? Or are there some restrictions in the M.2 NVME interface?

2) 2,5" SSD SATA mounting
How to mount a 2,5" SSD as third mass storage device in a 7424?

2.1) Background
Basically I thought that it should be possible to replace the existing CD/DVD drive in my new 7424 by the old 2,5" 8 TB SSD HD. But beside the difficult teardown to make it accessible I did not find the required components as it seems that the 7424 has a complete different mounting structure than the e6420xfr.
I found a 2,5" HDD caddy for a 5424 and I assume, its the same as for the 7424. But there must be something like a bracket/cradle/slider around with an according connector to slide in the 2,5" HDD caddy (?).

Beside the fact that I like DELL very much, I'm a little bit disappointed that this SSD/HDD topic for the 7424 was never solved properly. In fact I was going to buy a brand new 7424 here in Germany with all these strange SSD/HDD options just only to get the right hardware mountings for a (very) lot of money. But the expected delivery time was 40+ days and I need´ed to replace my e6420xfr quickly. So I bought a DELL refurbished (which looks & feel like new) and got this in one week from the US.
As a work around, I'm working now with a internal 2 TB M.2 SSD and an external waterproof case for my 8 TB 2,5" SSD, but in outdoor environments its never a good idea to handle external devices connected by cable. So I'm looking for a way to get back to 8 TB internal storage...

Thanks to everyone in advance for any hint/suggestions/ideas,

Peter.

I have the same issue. Any tips for solution?

We bought one of these refurbished about six months ago. The Dell reseller opened a service request on this issue with Dell and there has been complete silence for six months.

I really don't think anybody who deals in sales or support has any idea how these machines work well enough to either provide an answer or even find someone who might know.

I looked into all the BIOS releases and there is no indication of support for anything over 2TB, nor is there anything larger on the config page.

If it wasn't for the fact that my friend really wanted one of these, I'd avoid Dell from here out. I used to like them... no longer.

Any tips for solution?

Hi again,

to catch up this old issue:

in the meanwhile I bought a 4 TB NVME PCI M2 SSD to find out if this device will run in my DELL 7424.

The answer is yes and no.

The BIOS detects the CRUCIAL PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD P3 4TB.

In MBR mode its possible to install a new WIN10 on it and the system boots fine. Of course, only 2 TB are accessible.

In GPT mode the system starts to boot, but the initial displayed turning circle stops after some seconds, after two retrys a blue screen appears.

For me it looked like that the very first boot step (boot from the 150 MB FAT EFI partition) works fine but than the jump into the windows partition to continue the boot process fails.

First I made a exact copy from the working boot partitions of a 2 TB SSD by using EASEUS PARTION MASTER. 150 MB EFI and 312 GB WIN10 partitions.

No way, does not work.

Than I used a GPT/UEFI able USB stick with WIN10 installation files in BIOS UEFI mode. But when both (USB stick and 4TB SSD) devices are connected, the setup screen does not appear, same behaviour than before. After a few rotations of the circle below the DELL logo stops and it starts again.
When I use the USB stick alone in the UEFI mode, the system comes up with the WIN10 setup screen.

When I switch the BIOS to legacy mode and start with both devices (USB stick and 4TB SSD) the USB based WIN10 installation routine starts fine. Exiting this to command prompt, I can clearly see the system partitions on the 4 TB SSD. I can access all files in the C:\WINDOWS tree. All fine. But in BIOS legacy mode (MBR) mode.

So I tried to fix the bootloader. There are millions of GOOGLE results to fix it. But even I follow all DISKPART and BCDBOOT commands, there is no change.

When I put the 4TB SSD in an external USB 3 case, the system boots very nice.

I know that DELL said, only 2 TB SSD are allowed. But as in my old 6420 8 TB SATA was no problem my hope was, it will work. As far as I see there is absolutely no electronic in M.2 caddy, its just a case with some contacts to carry the M.2 SSD.

Any thoughts, hints or ideas for additional procedures on this attempt?

Best,

Peter.