Need Advice on Upgrading My Laptop

ameyas7 on 25/11/2020 - 00:27
Last edited 26/11/2020 - 22:21

Hi All,

I have a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Series (Model 7348) 2-in-1 5th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5500U laptop. I wanted some advice on how do I go about upgrading SSD &/or RAM on my laptop. Service Manual

Currently, it has following components:

  • Storage: 256 GB 2.5" SATA SSD (SSDR,256G,S3,7MM,SMSNG,PM851 as per Dell Support Assistant)
  • Memory: 8GB Single Channel DDR3L 1600M Hz (8GBx1)

I have never performed any hardware upgrade myself but I have basic understanding on various components, terminologies to some extent and feel I should be able to follow DIY instructions. The challenging part is I don't have enough experience, knowledge with the hardware world to know which specific model can work with my laptop, limitations of my current components or even where to find detailed information about them. I have tried to seek information on dell website but it shows very limited options on upgrade based on my model.
Based on my current setup, is there any recommendation on upgrading

  • SSD - I am looking to upgrade it to minimum 500 GB or 1TB depending on the cost involved and whether or not I can use my existing SSD with some adapter / enclosure as external drive. Additionally, I wanted to know if anyone has any recommendations on tools to clone existing SSD to new one. I'm assuming I will be able to retain all my existing softwares after cloning it to new SSD. Also currently I have dual boot between Windows Home 10 and Ubuntu OS. Does dual boot set up affect cloning process or require any additional steps? Apparently, even for SSD, this model seem to support only 256GB max as per Dell s Tech support personnel. Still kind of tempted to buy this and give it a try. In worst case may have to use it as an external drive with some enclosure.
    Quite tempted to get this one Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB provided it works with my model.
  • RAM - I vaguely recall to discuss this with Dell support personnel at the time of purchasing it few years back and they said this is the max RAM I can have. Not sure if this was due to laptop having only single slot or whether it was due to some other limitation. Does anyone know if its feasible to upgrade memory to 16GB on this model? Unfortunately, looks like 8GB is the max capacity on this model so will have to live with it.

I know I can do some research and find out the info but I wanted to ride black friday deals so thought to check with OzB community. Also while google can point me to various links, it would be good to get some expert opinions and first hand user feedback on various options etc.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Computing Computer Laptop

Comments

  • rflash101 on 25/11/2020 - 08:52
    +1

    With the SSD you should easily be able to support 1 gig, Id buy from a source you can get a refund from if you are not sure of the maximum capacity.

    With the RAM you can actually find out the maximum yourself, just follw the below..

    How much RAM my laptop can support?
    Press Windows key + R simultaneously. Then type cmd in search box and press Enter. In Command Prompt window, type wmic memphysical get maxcapacity and press Enter. Finally, the maximum capacity of RAM is shown on the screen (in kilobytes).

    For example my work laptop is 33554432 so it can safely support 32GB.

    Hope that helps.

    • ameyas7 on 25/11/2020 - 11:16

      cool. thanks for that command. unfortunately, looks like max supported on this model is 8G which is the current one anyway. also are you aware of cloning with dual boot setup? wonder if the partitions would be created seamlessly especially current SDD is 256 GB while new one would be 500 GB or 1 TB. In the worst case, will be ok to forego Ubuntu and then reinstall when new one is setup but just wanted to check if someone has already tried it and if they faced any issues with cloning.

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