Alienware 17 R3 M.2 SSD: which one?

[lcfballplayer43]

I just bought a new Alienware 17 R3 and it has 4 M.2 slots, but I do not know which SSD to purchase for it. I keep getting mixed responses. Do you know if it would be SATA or PCIe, if PCIe, NVMe or AHCI? I just want to make sure I purchase the right one as I was looking at the Samsung 950 Pro. 850 EVO, or SM951. Thanks!

 

[jbaker22]

Your laptop can use the fastest memory controller nvme. All of your drives above use pcie. The 950 Pro is the fastest, but the sm951 will seem just as fast because your other components will be a bottleneck. Sequential Read sm951 2150 MBps/ 950 pro 2500 MBps.

https://eu.alienwarearena.com/forums/thread/116523/technical-support-1/alienware-17-r3-newly-installed-m-2-951-pcie-ssd-in-bios-is-no-show/last

 

[cj100570]

I just bought a new Alienware 17 R3 and it has 4 M.2 slots, but I do not know which SSD to purchase for it. I keep getting mixed responses. Do you know if it would be SATA or PCIe, if PCIe, NVMe or AHCI? I just want to make sure I purchase the right one as I was looking at the Samsung 950 Pro. 850 EVO, or SM951. Thanks!

The Alienware 17 R3 only has 2 M.2 slots. If the Alienware 17 that you have has 4 M.2 slots it is either the R2 model or an older M17 model. The R2 and the M17 are SATA only whereas the 17 R3 can use SATA or PCIe drives of the AHCI or NVME variety.

17 R3

17 R2