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January 8th, 2021 13:00
XPS 8940, adding second SSD
I have an XPS 8930 with a 256g SSD drive that is 3-years old and just failed. As a result, I ordered a new 8940 with a 2TB SSD. I want to take the old SSD and put it in the new computer, then transfer the OS so I don’t have to start from scratch with Windows and applications. Is this possible?
My research so far indicates that it is.
As for physical installation, there appear to be two, 2.5 inch bays and two power supply connections. I would then need to procure and connect a second SATA data cable.
I think that the next step would be to clone the OS onto the new SSD.
Does anyone know if this doable and have any recommendations? Also, do you know if taking this action would present any warranty issues?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
RoHe
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January 8th, 2021 16:00
Can we assume what "failed" on the XPS 8930 wasn't the 256 GB SSD? What did fail?
If it's a factory-installed SSD in the XPS 8930, it's probably an M.2 PCI-e NVME SSD, which doesn't use either SATA power or data cables. It plugs directly into the M.2 slot on the motherboard. So that complicates cloning it.
Since the XPS 8940 only has one M.2 slot for an NVME SSD, you'd have to swap the old one into the XPS 8940, image it on an external USB drive with something like Macrium Reflect (free). Then swap the 2T SSD back in and copy the image from the external HDD onto that 2T SSD and then resize the partitions to use all 2T on the new SSD, but...
Your XPS 8930 has either an 8th or 9th Gen Intel CPU with Intel Z370 chipset. The XPS 8940 has a 10th Gen CPU with Intel H470 chipset. So it's "iffy" the OS installed on the XPS 8930 SSD will be able to boot the new PC.
If there are files on that old SSD you need, you could get an NVME>USB adapter to plug the old SSD into a USB port on the new PC...
Shouldn't be any warranty issues...