It’s that time again kids! Yet another Dell Inspiron Mini 9 How To article. Two weeks ago I showed you how to upgrade the memory on a Mini 9, last week we touched on a fantastic carbon fiber skin and this week it is time to upgrade that puny 16GB solid state drive (SSD) to a glorious 32GB. The great thing about this update is that it is quick and painless with the exception of reinstalling the operating system.
Prerequisites
To perform this upgrade you’ll obviously need a new SSD. For this article I am using a 32GB N100 Mobile Solid State Drive from Crucial. I purchased the SSD from AntaresPro for $76.99 with $9.95 shipping on 02/26/2009 and received it on 03/05/2009 direct from Crucial in Boise, ID. Crucial actually sells the drive themselves for $79.99 so some may want to cut out the middle man. Either way I was pleased with the price and the speed of delivery.
For this upgrade you’ll also need a small Philips head screw driver as seen in our Mini 9 memory upgrade article. Also be sure to allow yourself about five minutes for the hardware upgrade and then ample time for the operating system installation or re-imaging. You’ll also need to give yourself about two square feet of well lit, static free workspace. As you can see from the snapshot below, we are indeed starting out with a 16GB SSD.
The Installation
1. First, you’ll need to power down your Mini 9, close the lid and flip over the notebook.
2. You’ll then need to remove the power cable (A) and battery (B). The battery has two locking switches (C) that will need to be opened before removing the battery. Once you unlock both latches the battery should slide out towards the back of the device. Some force may need to be applied as the battery "clicks" into place.
3. You then remove the two screws (A) from their holes (B) using the screw driver. Then attempt to remove the module cover (C) which may require some prying in the module groove (D) with either the screw driver or a finger nail. Please note that this took a little force for me as the module cover was partially sealed with thermal tape.
4. Once you have the module cover removed set your eyes on the SSD (A).
5. To remove the SSD you need to remove the two screws holding it into place (A). Note that these screws may be tightened with Loctite so it may take some force, but be careful as you don’t want to strip the small screws.
6. After you release the screws the SSD will automatically pop up at a 45 degree angle. Pull the SSD in the direction of the arrows and it should dislodge from the machine. Don’t worry, as long as you pull in the correct direction you aren’t going to hurt anything.
7. Once you have the SSD removed make note of the SSD module’s tooth indicator (A), this shows you the correct placement of the new SSD. The SSD will only go in correctly if the SSD module’s tooth aligns with the SSD’s indention.
8. Place the SSD into the module by sliding it in at the same angle you removed the previous SSD (as directed by the arrows). This may take some pressure to securely position it into place.
9. Gently press downward on the SSD and secure it back into place using the two screws (A) that you originally removed. Be sure that you are using the same screws as they are smaller than the ones used on the module cover.
10. Replace the module cover plate (A) making sure to line up the proper screw holes (B). Please note that I had to firmly press down on the module cover while applying pressure to all four sides to ensure that it was closed completely.
11. Replace the two screws (A) that you removed earlier which will tightly lock down the module cover (B).
12. Replace the battery to it’s proper place and flip the Mini 9 Over and fire it up.
13. During startup quickly press 2 on the keyboard to boot into the BIOS. When I went into my BIOS it showed the Fixed HDD as None which initially worried me. Fret not!
14. Start your desired operating system installation, in our case we are using Windows 7 Beta Build 7048. The Windows 7 installation recognized the new SSD right away.
15. An overview of the new SSD inside Windows 7.
The Windows 7 Experience index failed yet again in Beta Build 7048. We’ve had it fail not once, nor twice, but three times now on three different machines.
Conclusion
The actual installation of the drive was extremely simple. Big kudos to Dell for making the solid state drive in the Dell Mini 9 so easy to access, they could have easily buried it on the opposite side of the system board and made you remove the keyboard and other parts to get to it, thus voiding your warranty. So thanks to them for making the Mini 9 a modder’s dream.
As a side note I thought I’d share a side-by-side profile view of both the 16GB and the 32GB solid state drives, the 32GB is on the right. It still amazes me how far we’ve come with solid state storage. 32GB of storage in a 2.5” by 1.5” chip; amazing.
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