SSD upgrade for Alienware X51 without replacing existing 3.5TB HDD

Thank you! Took me several hours to find out if the x51 can take two HDD or 1 HDD and 1 SSD. So you answered my question: No, it does not take more then 1 hdd :( and even the ssd had to be hacked in there.

Is a thin 7mm ssd a better fit than the 9.5mm ssd's?

yes.

can the left panel be closed? and how do you attach the ssd onto your disk drive? with a double sided tape? because i am going to use the desktop vertically, does it fall with just double sided tape, taped the ssd on optical drive? thanks!

Hi,

In my case I'm using a M4 crucial SSD and the left panel can be closed - I do not use tape or any thing else to hold the SSD in place as the panel holds it in place once closed - I also have it in vertical orientation and the panel holds the SSD in place.  The SSD casing is plastic so it cannot really short with the metal chassis, however, I have wrapped the SSD in thin paper just to be safe.

NOTE: Some people have reported that they have NOT been able to close the left panel with the SSD in place so I cannot guarantee this will work for everyone.

Please try at your own risk - if it does not work you'll have to install the SSD in place of the 3.5 "HD (with 3.5" to 2.5" bay converter) and use the 3.5" HD externally using an USB 3.0 enclosure.

Hi,

Great guide. Will this product work if I follow your guide. I am awaiting my X51 as I write.

http://www.ebuyer.com/386370-crucial-128gb-v4-ssd-with-easy-laptop-install-kit-ct128v4ssd2cca?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products#

Kind Regards,

Daniel

No reason why it should not work, however, see my caution above your post.

Yeah to be honest that sounds like a better idea to me. Thanks for the reply

{edit}

Could you do things the other way round? Have an external SSD using USB 3.0? Would that impact on load times for the operating system? I know very little about the innards of a PC so sorry for my, probably, dumb questions.

Incompressible,

Awesome. I have saved your thread into my Alienware FAQ 1/19/13.

No you wouldn't want to do that.  Hooking up the SSD externally using USB 3.0 would limit its throughput and negate the reason for using SSD in the first place.  Even though the theoretical throughput of USB 3.0 is 4 gbs, you will not get close to that in practice. The Sata II in our X51 has max 3.0 gbs put you will be able to get close to that with the SSD as Sata is optimized for Hard-disk transfers, while USB 3.0 is designed for general purpose use and incurs a higher overhead due to its architecture.

I was going to do my own write-up on this awhile ago (when this thread helped me add an ssd to my own x51), but I'm entirely too lazy.  Anyway, here are four pics that I took that may help some people figure out where plug stuff in;

power

power2

connector1

connector2

Here is how I did mine, dont use the dvd drive, so I removed it in favor of a pair of laptop drives.  I cut up the dvd drive frame and just used part of it.

Then drilling 8 holes into the frame to hold the 2.5 inch laptop drives.  Here are 2 drives just as mock up, but I plan to put in a ssd to boot from, then a 1tb hdd for data.  I am however removing the 3.5 drive from the system for some better cooling.

Here is whats left of the dvd cage after removing it.

I followed these steps for the installation: 1. The X51 provides a third unused SATA slot which can be used to connect to the SSD. However, the X51 does not come with an extra SATA power connector so this had to be installed separately. As per a web-site (can't remember the URL) I tapped into the existing mobo molex connector (under the DVD drive) to get the SATA power.  In the original configuration the female mobo molex connector supplies power to the 3.5" HD and the DVD drive. You'll need a Y-connector cable (P/N StarTech PYO1LP4SATA on Amazon) which has a male molex on one end, and a female molex and SATA power connector on the other end.   Detach the original 3.5" HD/DVD drive power cable from the mobo female molex connector, connect the male molex connector of the new cable into the mobo molex connector, and finally connect the original 3.5" HD/DVD drive power male molex connector into the female molex connector of the new cable. You'll be left with a SATA power connector that can be used for the SSD.   2. Detach the data SATA connector of the 3.5" HD from the mobo to disable it during installation of the SSD.   3. Use a new SATA data-cable and connect SSD to the extra SATA port on the mobo. Also, connect the SATA power cable to the SSD.   4. Place supplied Alienware Windows CD into DVD drive and ensure SATA mode is set to UEFI in BIOS and boot order is set to UEFI DVD - this can be chosen by pressing F2 during boot-up.  Using UEFI mode ensures the Windows will automatically make a 100 MB EFI partition in the SSD along with the OS partition. This will also apparently format the drive with GUID (GPT) partition table which apparently is the "wave of the future" as opposed to MBR partition for SATA legacy mode. There is a lot of debate regarding GPT (new) vs MBR (old and best compatibility) and I believe the 3.5" HD is configure as GPT.  I know the original HD has a 300 MB EFI partition along with DELLUTILITY and RECOVERY partition, but you will not get these and copying over these partitions is beyond the scope of this installation.   I also tried installing the OS using the SATA legacy mode (non UEFI) and that also worked fine. In that case Windows did not create a EFI partition.   5. Windows will install and you're fee to install your favourite games. Later you can reconnect the data SATA connector of the 3.5" HD to the mobo so that you can access that drive as well.   Have fun

Incompressible, thanks for the guide. I'll pass this info to my team in case they need to post it somewhere else. Hope you don't mind.

@ Alienware-Pablo_R

Sure, no problem.  However, please be aware of the caution I've mentioned in one of the above posts that I'm repeating here:

NOTE: Some people have reported that they have NOT been able to close the left panel with the SSD in place so I cannot guarantee this will work for everyone.

Please try at your own risk - if it does not work you'll have to install the SSD in place of the 3.5 "HD (with 3.5" to 2.5" bay converter) and use the 3.5" HD externally using an USB 3.0 enclosure.