XPS 8940, 1TB SSD upgrade

re: The only thing I was concerned about was the size of the SSD (512GB SK hynix) which is the OS (C:) Drive . Not only is the capacity small but the actual physical size of it is too. It’s about the size of a postage stamp so I’m guessing it won’t dissipate heat very well in a system that already runs hot.
Figured I’d upgrade to a 1TB since the 512GB is already about half full right out of the box. Did a little research and can’t believe how complicated and difficult this upgrade will be.
I think I know what type (M.2 NVMe PCIe) but don’t know what Gen. to get (Gen 3 / Gen 4). 

nvme ssd does not generate much heat despite its small or miniature size.  you do not need to worry about overheating.

8940 has chipset H470 which does not support gen 4 PCIe.  A gen 3 nvme ssd is compatible.

if you are afraid of the difficulty of cloning the 512 gb to 1 tb ssd, one option is to keep the 512 as boot drive and install the new 1 tb ssd in a PCIe adapter in PCIe slot if there is an empty slot available.  use the new ssd for data storage, and the old one for boot.  Windows 10/11 itself will never be so large to fill up 512 gb ssd.  8940 has three slots so if you have a video card in x16 slot you still have two slots available.

Did you check Disk management to be sure the ssd is the only drive? Normally the 8940 ordered from Dell comes with a 1 TB sata drive and the ssd can be added for extra cost. Right click on the Start Button and select Disk Management to see all the disks on the computer. If there is a D drive that must be selected as default for storage. The C is the system boot drive.

Lots of Forum threads discussing this. You should read through some of them prior to purchase.

XPS 8940, 1TB SSD upgrade

@redxps630 

"nvme ssd does not generate much heat despite its small or miniature size."

That statement is false. PCI-E NVME drives generate a lot of heat which is why they REQUIRE heatsinks. That is also why Dell NVME upgrade guides indicate that the thermal pad and heatsink for PCI-E NVME are not optional.  I would recommend the following for an 8940.

Seagate-FireCuda 520 1TB with heatsink

Sabrent NVME ROCKET PCI-E

This is one of many heatsinks for NVME PCI-E

DELL 4TW9C NVME Heatsink for XPS

@stealthgeek  -If  you have an add-in HDD in addition to the SSD, as @Mary G asked, you can uninstall some of your apps from the SSD and then re-install them, but this time directing the installations onto the HDD.

And, assuming you do have an HDD, you should move Win 10's default folders for docs, pix etc onto the HDD too. Same goes for apps like Firefox files which uses lots of disk space for user profile(s), favorites, extensions, etc.

I do have a 1TB HDD Drive (D:). How do I make it my "default storage" drive? Is that the same as another suggestion to "move Win 10 default folders" onto HDD? 

Moving the Win 10 default folders is part of the way to make (D:) the default drive for storage. But some apps, including Edge and Firefox, have their own settings to set the location where you want the app to save files and where to look for files it already has saved.

The link I posted above will tell you how to change that setting for Edge. You can read how to do that for Firefox here. Chrome is difficult so search to see if anyone has found a way.

I use an old version of Microsoft Office and each of its apps has a different option for saving files. Eg, in my version of Word, it's Tools>Options>File Locations. In Excel, it's Tools>Options>General. So you'll have to look at each of your apps to find where/how to change the settings.

@stealthgeek To make another driver the default for additional storage go to All settings / System / Storage / click on "Change where new content is saved" / then change where new apps, new documents, new music, new photos, new movies, etc. are saved. Note that existing documents, music, photos, movies, etc. remain in their current locations and have to be moved (copied to the new location and deleted (if you wish) from the old location. Existing apps have to be uninstalled and reinstalled, except that some apps prefer to be installed on the OS drive. Also, some apps default to saving content on the C drive. 

The suggestion of making D drive the default storage drive is basically the same as moving Windows 10 default folders to the HDD, but the process involves the procedure I described because you have the make the changes so that the OS knows.

Wow, that sounds like it maybe more work then upgrading my SSD. I really appreciate the help but think I'd prefer to just increase the size of my C: Drive. I was hoping to find out the best 1TB SSD to get for the 8940 (most compatible and dependable). A previous suggestion in this thread was for a Gen 4 SSD...and also someone had said Gen 3 is what I need. I was thinking it would be nice to clone the existing 512GB drive and save it for an emergency back up if my primary SSD crashed/died? (If that would even work). Also, a good "how to" video or link that shows how to do the upgrade on my 8940. A process that is known to work with a Dell system and not run into any issues...If there's an issue, I'll be dead in the water.

Back to my original question that hopefully someone on here can help me with. Hoping someone whom has done the upgrade themselves (on a XPS 8940), can steer me in the right direction. 

I know a Gen-3 or Gen-4 SSD will function in my 8940 but will the Gen-4 run up to it's full potential? I've been reading on the Google and found that Gen 4 SSD's do work at full power on my system (I think). I have a i7-11700 CPU / Rocket Lake Chipset / Southbridge H470 system (thanks CPU-Z). Shouldn't those specs. take full advantage of a Gen-4 SSD? Is there a road block with the Dell motherboard and or BIOS?

Again, thanks to everyone that has tried to help, I've been learning a lot. Mostly the discussion has been about keeping my 512GB SSD and to isolate it as the OS drive. After that suggestion I did manage to relocate my iTunes Library and Backups to my 1TB Data drive. Thank goodness iTunes still works and I've cleared a ton of space on my C: Drive.

@stealthgeek  - Glad you cleared out some space on your SSD. Did you move your email in/out boxes too? They can really eat up space too.

As for the SSD question, the XPS 8940 specs say the mobo uses PCI-e "up to Gen 3.0". The max bandwidth available on an M.2 slot with PCI-e Gen 3.0 is 4GB/s. So read/write speeds on an SSD can't exceed that speed.

PCI-e 4.0 increases the max bandwidth to 8GB/s, but an SSD that's compatible with PCI-e 4.0 won't read/write at that higher speed on a PCI-e 3.0 mobo.

Does that answer the question?

Switching BIOS from RAID to AHCI will have zero effect on either the current SSD or the HDD, as long as you do make the change correctly, so you don't end up having to reinstall Win 10.

I only did the iTunes data/backups for now, it really made a difference. Now that I've done that and am considering doing more of it (move data to Drive and assign as default destination)...Does this configuration (C: & Drive swapping data back and forth) have anything to do with RAID or AHCI setting in Bios? I ask because I'm considering buying and installing a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB. I've read several times that Samsung SSD's require the system Bios to be set to AHCI. 

If I do install a Samsung SSD and switch the setting in Bios to AHCI, will this prevent Drive data from working together with C: Drive, as I'm just starting to consider. Again, I've only done iTunes so far and was very relieved it worked...I just don't want to go any further until I understand more.

Again, thanks for all the help!

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@stealthgeek wrote:

In by last post "Drive" in a few spots was supposed to be "D: Drive". I think it got autocorrected or something and I didn't notice it until post was up.

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I understood what you meant...

You can't use D immediately followed by : with this forum's software, the same way you use C:

D followed : gets interpreted as an emoji but they're hidden on this forum, so you won't see anything where you used that key combo. You can use (D:) 

In by last post "Drive" in a few spots was supposed to be "D: Drive". I think it got autocorrected or something and I didn't notice it until post was up.