I have had my new XPS 15 for 4 days now, and overall it is a very impressive machine. I got the mid-range one (with 1TB HDD). However, I would like to let the community know about some issues I am having, and to post publicly that this particular machine is shipping with a flawed setup.
My model comes with 16GB system memory. It has a 32GB mSATA drive intended to be used for Intel Rapid Start and Intel Rapid Storage. The mSATA is partitioned with 8GB for Intel Rapid Start and 22GB for Intel Rapid Storage. However, Intel clearly documents that you need a partition equal in size to the system memory for Intel Rapid Start to work. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.intel.com%2Fsupport%2Fmotherboards%2Fdesktop%2Fsb%2Frapid_start_technology_user_guide_for_uefi1.pdf&ei=m1OHUpzGAdPpkAfE8YGIDg&usg=AFQjCNH7Rh6iQN6hSR0Ry3oBF6kGmxgjaA&sig2=e--yKMT7hoApFUI_7kMyEA This makes sense because what it is doing is writing an image of system memory to the SSD.
Consequently, Intel Rapid Start does not work on the midrange XPS 15 9530.. I noticed this because it starts slower than my old Inspiron 15 with its Crucial SSD.
Unfortunately, one cannot fix this by repartitioning the mSATA. If you dedicate 16GB on the mSATA to Intel Rapid Start, only 14GB remain for Intel Rapid Storage, which requires a minimum of 18.6 GB to work.
Dell needs to ship this model with a larger mSATA for both technologies to work.
Now I really would not care personally, as my intention was to recycle my 512GB Crucial M4 as a boot drive by performing a clean Windows install on it. This would allow me to dedicate the entire mSATA to Intel Rapid Start. Unfortunately, this system does not ship with Windows Install disks. And I can't seem to order one as Dell's system does not recognize my Service Tag. I've tried to use the factory reinstallation disks I made to reinstall on my SSD, but they won't let me reinstall to a smaller drive. I could destroy the final 6.96 recovery partition, shrink the main partition, and then clone the drive with Clonezilla, but my intention was to keep the original disk as backup, and the SSD would not be aligned properly.
Another issue I had was the McAfee firewall that came preinstalled prevented me from setting a second network to private. I uninstalled this after failing to find a solution. Windows Defender seems to be adequate antivirus, and its much easier to set the 2nd network to private with Windows firewall.
Overall I am very happy with my new computer, but I don't think I'll be really happy until I can switch back to SSD. I may solve this by ordering a 1TB Samsung EVO, but that puts me up to the price point of the top XPS 15 9530, and I didn't want to go there. And I would still have the alignment issue if I clone the drive. So hopefully my service tag will get recognized soon allowing me to order Windows reinstallation disks.
