Dell Alienware user upgrades and warranty.

[DELTAprime]

I have a Alienware X51 on the way to me. I found out that the free Dell 250gb SSD upgrade they included uses a really slow SSD and I would like a higher capacity anyway. Since Alienware/Dell has instructions in the manual, on their site and YouTube channel for replacing the hard drives does that mean I can upgrade the HDD or SSD without voiding the warranty?

 

[kneebender]

I'm not familiar with their warranty but most laptops you are able to swap the storage without voiding warranty. It's as easy as unplugging old hard drive and plugging in new one.

 

[electrontau]

Since there is no recovery discs, you might want to create your own and use them on new hdd.

 

[DELTAprime]

The X51 is a Mini ITX desktop, I don't know if that changes anything warranty wise since it's more involved than opening a small door. I am guessing since it's in the manual it's OK, but I'm no expert on warranties.

Alienware actually includes a recovery disk so my plan is just to replace the Dell SSD (which requires removing the video card and a 1TB spinning drive) with a larger capacity SSD and pop the Alienware DVD in and reinstall.

 

[kneebender]

They make software called ssd migration software that comes with a usb cable that will plug into the ssd. Before you install the ssd you run that software plug in the new ssd into your usb port with the cable that comes with it. The software will then clone your Operating system, all your progams , and settings and install them on the new ssd. You then remove your old hdd and install the ssd and it will boot up without reloading everything.

 

[orlbuckeye]

I have an Alienware 18 laptop. No the rest of the machine is still covered under warranty and the drive would be if you purchased it from Dell. I upgraded my Alienware 256 GB SSD to a Samsung 840 EVO and it's much faster. I cloned the drive so I didn't need to use the restore disks. Also the SSD migration is for Samsung drives only. My SSD is MSATA (Smaller). Companies are usually alot stricter with laptops then desktops as far as coverage with warranties on modifying the original configuration.

 

[orlbuckeye]

Well Newegg has Samsung EVO 850 500 GB for under 200. I got a 840 EVO 1TB MSATA for 429.