DJSNiperwolf Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Has anyone added a secondary hard drive to your M17x? I ordered my build with a 256GB SSD and don't want to completely use that drive of it's space. Anyone who has done it, was it a quick install or a do I have to disassemble anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radji Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 It's a quick install. But, you may need to call Alienware up after you get your m17x and get the second hard drive caddy and interposer if they don't include it with your system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackgarcia7 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Has anyone added a secondary hard drive to your M17x? I ordered my build with a 256GB SSD and don't want to completely use that drive of it's space. Anyone who has done it, was it a quick install or a do I have to disassemble anything? It is a very simple process that shouldn't e difficult. There is plenty of how to's out there here is just one. . Have fun with the new system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorba02 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 It is very easy you just take off the bottom cover two small screws under the battery and don't worry it comes with hard drive caddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tipra Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 i added a second HD to my system .. i just ordered mine with one HD .. my system came with the necessary stuff for the second HD .. if it hasnt come i dont think its much of a problem as people have reported just asking DELL for a caddy and they ship it out directly to u without any charge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Rowe Posted January 6, 2013 Share Posted January 6, 2013 Just bought a refurbished M17x R4 and it comes with the standard 750gb 7200rpm hdd. But Im thinking of also inserting a 60gb SSD to install the OS on as its will increase speed and its a fairly cheap upgrade! They ship a caddy without charge!! I find it hard to believe from heard all the bad reviews about their customer support etc... But i will take your word! If you don't ask you will never know i suppose! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wcdeardorff Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 It is hit or miss. I had 2 refurbs I purchased. One came with the caddy but not connector. One didn't come with either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusionseed Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 It's very easy if they didn't forget to put the caddy in your machine. Just to notice that don't put the mechanical harddisk in the slot under graphic card, which may cause harddisk overheat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesst20 Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 I did install a second hard drive on my Alienware M17x, it came with the 1TB HDD 5400RPM which is too slow to me so I got the Sandisk Extreme 480GB SSD from Newegg for only 350$ and made it as second hard drive. At first I thought I would need to buy a new adapter to plug it but luckily, Dell attached the adapter to the HDD panel It is really to install Go ahead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radji Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 Umm, what? You put your SSD as the second drive? You should have put your SSD in the first slot as it will get the SATA III speeds and install Windows on it. You're system will really fly then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusionseed Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Both SATA slots in R4 supports SATA III. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codral Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 I was concerned about that fusion... Thanks for clarification... I was going to say, if that's the case then It'll be crazily fast once i upgrade (full reset takes me about 40 secs).I couldn't get my SSD to function properly as my primary unless I removed the other drive. Tried manually changing the boot order and a bunch of other things but it'd just hang during POST with two drives, and the SSD in slot 1.Works fine with it in secondary slot though and will save tears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radji Posted May 5, 2013 Share Posted May 5, 2013 There's no reason it should not work in the primary slot, unless the SATA connectors on the SSD aren't lining up properly with the slots on the primary's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seraiel Posted May 5, 2013 Share Posted May 5, 2013 What I read in another guide, is, that one should not install the HDD near the Grafics Card, because of heat issues, therefor, I installed my SSD in Slot 2 and simply changed the booting sequence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radji Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 That's is a possibility. But I've got my SSD installed near my GPU (in Bay 0) and it does make a difference of 8C. That still only puts my SSD at 40C, and it's never gone above 45C so I am not worried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalentjne Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 By default, m17x r4 has two hard driver slots including the RAID cable, and one more if you disassemble the DVD dual slot and replace it with the combo caddy bay + hard driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathieulh Posted July 6, 2013 Share Posted July 6, 2013 I replaced both my hard drives with larger ssds, went just fine and was really easy. Now I have 1*512GB and 1*960GB worth of SSD space Be sure to read the m17x's owner/service manual if you have doubts about how to do things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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