mSATA Drive Dell XPS8700

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I wish to add an mSATA drive to an older Dell XPS8700 i7-4770 desktop to act as the boot device for Windows 10.

I contacted Dell support but was only able to confirm that the slot exists(duh) and they directed me to the manual. The manual simply shows how to install or remove the drive from the board. In two different calls the agent was unable to confirm that there would be no issue installing an mSATA device and booting from the mSATA.

Some forum posts at Dell report the mSATA is a cache only. Another suggests possible devices to use but no indication of if they would be a cache device only or a bootable device.

Has anyone used an mSata successfully as the primary boot device on an XPS8700?

Dave M

Posted 2019-11-29T17:00:05.073

Reputation: 12 811

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verified it works>>>>https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-8700-New-mSata-wont-boot-unless/td-p/4639452

– Moab – 2019-11-29T22:49:50.350

1You are better to use a regular SSD on the sata bus, it will be much much faster. – Moab – 2019-11-29T22:51:16.363

Answers

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There shouldn't be (I got the same kind of "read from the book" response from MSI "knows-no-tech support" and replaced the board with a competitor's ... just because their "manual" is totally defective [I've since found out how to install 2 M.2 drives as distinct drives ... which the board wouldn't do by default]). And forum posts? That's from people who are anywhere from design engineers to newbies. I wouldn't count on it. The Buddha said, in effect, "Don't accept any claim from anyone - not even this one." So don't even take my word as definitive.

Connect the drive, boot from your current boot drive, Quick format the mSata drive (never fully format an SSD - there are no actual "tracks" or "sectors", it just wastes some of the life of the drive), clone your boot drive to the mSATA drive (or install the OS to it - depends on what you want), restart, going into the BIOS and changing the boot order, so you boot from the mSata drive ... and you should be booted in the mSata drive.

(I've just gone through this with a new MB and 2 M.2 SSDs. The computer is a lot faster - nice.)

If they're right (it doesn't sound to me as if they are), at least you can have a second drive. But I think that if the BIOS allows you to set the mSATA as a boot drive, you'll be right where you want to be.

Rukbat

Posted 2019-11-29T17:00:05.073

Reputation: 9

Asked: 2019-11-29T17:00:05.073

Viewed: 27 times

Active: 2019-11-29T18:27:55.460