Hello Shez,

My firmware had initially the 01MG firmware but I upgraded it to the latest one as soon as I installed it, so I didn't experience any troubles..

It's weird because I used Gparted to align my msata drive, and the benchmarks seem not as good as before.. I thought it would be the opposite.. well.. it's damn good anyway compared to my HDD ! :)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, maybe I'll try to rephrase what I said :

I made a dualboot on my computer (with EasyBCD), so when it starts up I can either choose to boot on my old HDD (with my old Windows7) or I can choose to boot on the Windows7 I just installed on my new mSata SSD.

It enables me to compare the speed differences, and to backup any settings I need.

After a while, when I'll feel everything is ok, I'll simply delete my old windows and directly boot into the new one from my mSata.

To boot on my old HDD i needed around 60-80 seconds and from the mSata only about 15 seconds now !!

I hope my explanation is clearer now :)

Here is a complete guide :emotion-11:

1- Introduction and daughter card WITH mSata

I bought a DELL Inspiron 15R SE laptopt in July, without the mSata, since the option wasn't available..

After 5 months of calling/emailing DELL and searching on forums, I finally got the answers I needed from other users and from some DELL support guys (not from the french ones - I'm french).

I ordered the spare part (N7JHH) that has the mSata port from DELL spare parts for 11€ (number for France 09.69.39.00.30 or 01.80.60.2000) and I got it within a week.


2- SSD mSata drive

You now need to buy an mSata SSD drive, I bought the Crucial m4 128GB :
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5735/micron-c400-msata-128gb-ssd-review
and fix it on the newly acquired daughter card with a screw (not supplied).




3- Assembly

Now comes the hard part, you need to disasemble your computer almost entirely to replace the daughter card.

There are about 8 to 9 steps with 1 to 6 screws each time, about 31 screws in total. Better be organized to not miss a screw when you assemble all again.



I think there is a video somewhere on Youtube that shows you how to take appart this laptop.



You don't need to remove the motherboard, only the screws that are linked to the daughter card.

You'll also need to remove the wifi module to put it on the new daughter card.



You can check the differences between the two cards..



put the new card where the old one was, and reassemble the computer back.




4- Windows and firmware

When you start your computer, windows should detect your new drive. You can now format it and do a firmware update of the mSata : http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

You can either do it from windows :
http://edge.crucial.com/firmware/m4/04MH/Crucial_04MH-M4-00_SSDFirmwareUpdate.zip

If it doesn't work, you'll have to burn the ISO file on a CD or USB key : http://edge.crucial.com/firmware/m4/04MH/Crucial_m4msata_04MH-M4-00.zip
with this software :
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

If all works well, you should see that on your screen :

5- Alignement and tests

Vous start windows again and maybe need to format your disk again (or not..) Windows should align the partition automatically - this is important for performance, you can check if your drive is aligne with some tools like these SSD benchmark tools :

Anvil's Storage Utilities : http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?273661-Anvil-s-Storage-Utilities/page17



AS SSD Benchmark :
http://alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?download_id=9

If it's not aligned, you'll need to follow this guide :
http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-sure-your-partitions-are-correctly-aligned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance

You can then install Windows on your new mSata drive and use EasyBCD for dual-boot if you want to keep your old windows to make some comparison or recover some program parameters (http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/)


6- Fancycache

To optimise my laptop even more, I installed Fancycache (which uses your RAM as disk cache) :
http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/index.html
(free 180 days beta)
Check my benchmarks :

It can seem impressive, but for having tested fancycache with and without SSD, the most benefit you get is from installing an SSD drive.. fancycache just give you a little bonus in performance.

Here is a complete guide on the mSata with it's installation :

en.community.dell.com/.../20251304.aspx

Wow Dom I think you deserve a round of applause and a pat on the back !!! :-)

Great post with loads of information I particularly liked how you had tested fancycache with the hdd and ssd the read speeds are phenomenal, I think I will be getting 16g at a later date and using fancycache.

I assume all the bench marks you have done are on the new firmware ?

How difficult was it to disassemble the machine did you end up damaging/scratching the plastic or outside?

Also on a side note what screen did you get with the laptop 720p or 1080p?

Anyway thanks for all the good info I think it will help many people who are interested in msata on the Inspiron 15R SE

cheers

Shez

Hey Dom

I also read some people were having lower performance with the newer firmware but I was more concerned about the drive not appearing after a hard reboot. I went ahead and ordered the crucial drive even though I wanted the mushkin one as the write speed is 2.5 faster but it is more expensive and harder to source and who knows what the support will be like as the presence is quite weak in the UK, I got Crucial CT128M4SSD3 128GB is that the same as yours ?

Thanks for the more detailed explanation and I think I am going to do exactly what you did with the dual boot system until I am happy everything is working perfectly , it is a really good idea  !!!

Hello Shez, yes it seems as if you got the same Crucial mSata I did :)

I have 1080p screen, but use a 26" 1920x1200 screen as my main display :)

To help opening my computer I used some plastick prying tools, especially a pick (triangle guitar thing), from the tools you get to repair an iphone :

I think I didn't scratch it too much.. the hardest part for me was to remove the keyboard.. but you won't disassemble your laptop very often.. I hope :P

about fancycache, i don't know exactly how much memory it uses.. I allocated 2GB per drive (for HDD and SSD), but I think it takes the memory as needed..

I also thought about getting 16GB for the RAM, but don't know if it's worth it yet (~100€), maybe if you really need a big boost.

In this case, with 16GB (is it possible to go to 32gB ?) you can also make use of RAMdisk software. With a virtual drive in RAM.. access is incredibly fast !

Check this benchmark out I just did :

You can get RAMDisk at Dataram : memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

It's free if you want to create a Ramdisk up to 4GB and 19 US $ for the paid license to go beyond the 4GB limit.

Of course, keep in mind it's a drive in memory (RAM) so it's erased when you turn off you computer.. but I'm sure you can find a good use for it ;)

Here is a complete steps of my installation of the msata drive here :

en.community.dell.com/.../20251653.aspx

What type of screw did you use to fix the mSATA drive to the daughter board ?

eg. m4 , 5mm long ?

Hello, don't know exactly, I think it was about the same width as other screws on the daughter board, but quite short, about  2-3mm long I think.

Thanks Dom. How much of removal work you had to do ? Do you follow all the instructions on the Dell service book ?

Hi dom. I have a proposition for you from the united states.as the board doesn't have any private messaging capabilities, I was hoping you can email me at concentric12 at hotmail dot com.thanks!

I have a sealed msata daughterboard for Inspiron 15R SE (7520). I ordered one in the belief that I had the non-msata version but when I opened the laptop up in fact it had the msata version but no ssd. It cost £30 in the UK. I will sell for £25 incl postage in the UK or £27 to EU. Dell in the UK will not send the part to a consumer, it has to be ordered through their 3rd party spares agents hence the higher price. £30 was the cheapest in the UK.

Hi Ravi,

can you please check if "my" model ships with mSATA daughterboard?

I didn't buy it yet since retailer is not sure about this - notebook doesn't include SSD but description states "with fast mSATA".

Manufacturer code(?) is 5397063310586, can you get sth meaningful out of it?

thanks!

Hi,

Is your daughterboard still for sale?  My 15R SE (7520) is in transit from Dell and I will put in an mSATA SSD upon it's arrival.

I am located in Surrey.