XPS 8930, SSD upgrade questions

@brk5813 What you have written seems to imply that Intel Optane HDD is one item. It is actually an Intel Optane memory module that works with software as cache memory in combination with an HDD to speed up the operation of the HDD. You can add the SSDs as additional disk storage or you can use one of the SSDs as a substitute for the Optane memory/HDD combination.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert, do this at your own risk

I did this with an NVME drive following parts B to E here to swap the Optane-HDD Windows drive for the NVME drive
https://www.youtube.com/@georgesops7251/videos

The most crucial part to pay attention to is changing from RAID to AHCI and creating a 'local user account' if you don't have one. I can't find the link in my bookmarks but a blog post I found relating to this there were numerous people who had boot loops and/or lost access to their machines becfause they did not have a local account/administrator password.

If you have zero confidence doing this I would say leave it as is because the boot times/program loading time differences between SATA SSD and the Optane-HDD are barely noticeable in practice e.g. off the top of my head on NVME drive my boot times went from 20 seconds on Optane-HDD to 12 secs on the NVME drive (I know it's nearly twice as fast but that metric is meaningless when the difference is 8 seconds). Just install the SSDs as is and put any larger programs/games onto those drives and leave the operating system Windows on the Optane-HDD

The XPS 8930 specs say it can support up to three 3.5" hard drives. Samsung 870 Evo is  a 2.5" SSD, so you'll need an adapter tray to install a 2.5" SSD in a 3.5" drive cage.

You'll also need to provide a SATA data cable for each additional SATA drive installed. (PSU should have enough available SATA power cables.)

CAVEAT: The internal view of the XPS 8930 only shows two 3.5" drive cages, so it's not clear -to me- where a third 3.5" HDD can be installed, unless two 2.5" SSDs will fit inside the same cage, or unless you can attach a second SSD to outside of a drive cage that's visible.

Re:  .....XPS 8930 only shows two 3.5" drive cages, so it's not clear -to me- where a third 3.5" HDD can be installed.

Thanks for the info!

Thank you, I was wondering where the third one was!

Thank you for the info and the link to pics!

Awesome, thanks for the videos - If the increase is only seconds, I don't see the need.  But I will install the SSDs for storage.

Hello @brk5813 

Thanks for sharing. You can refer this.