Dell Inspiron 11 3000 SSD upgrade
The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series is a lovely laptop at a very nice price (~$350 USD). One of the few drawbacks is the slow HDD. Thankfully, that is easily remedied with an SSD upgrade!
SSD Upgrade
The photos below show how I upgraded my Inspiron 11 3147 with a 7mm Samsung 1TB SSD. Of course the same steps will work for smaller capacity SSDs [128GB, 256GB, 512GB] as well 🙂
Memory Upgrade
While you have the machine open, you may also want to upgrade your Inspiron 11 to 8GB of DDR3L RAM for around $54 for Crucial memory with a lifetime warranty.
A Much More Responsive Laptop!
With a nice SSD and RAM upgrade, my 3147 has been much more responsive in virtually all respects. Happy computing! 🙂
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- Before removing screws
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- With screws removed
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- Gently opening the Inspiron 11 3000 case
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- Continuing to open the case
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- View of the motherboard with the bottom portion of the case removed
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- SSD before installation
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- 7mm 500GB HDD vs 7mm 1TB SSD
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- 8GB of DDR3L RAM is compatible with this model!
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- Showing the clips that hold the cover on
If you have a 3147 or 3148 2-in-1 touch Dell, I hope you utilize these instructions to upgrade to a nice SSD. The performance difference is quite astounding!
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Is is comparable with dell 3148?
Hi Ishaan,
Yes, very comparable and virtually identical. The upgrade steps will be exactly the same>
Best regards,
-J.D.
Thanks for the info!!!
My pleasure RJ. Thank you for your nice comment and enjoy your Dell 🙂
I have the 3147, and Dell rep said it could only hold 4GB RAM. If I upgrade to an SSD, I’ll be able to upgrade RAM as well? Is it dependent on the SSD I install?
Hello and thank you for the great question Gary!
On my 3147, 8GB of RAM worked perfectly. You should be able to duplicate that on your 3147 if you use a 8GB of DDR3L SODIMM and you have a 64 bit OS installed. Also, the SSD is totally independent and will not affect the memory (RAM) capacity whatsoever.
Best regards,
-J.D.
I followed your instructions exactly, other than I couldn’t afford a 1tb SSD and went with a 256meg, and my 3148 is MUCH faster. Thanks.
Glad I could help! 👍
Hi. JDH.
I upgraded the same notebook with a 240 Kingston. I upgraded to 8 gb ram. But the eficiency it’s not rise up enough. Read sequential only 283 mb-sec. Write sequential only 81 Mb-sec. I did everything recomended online to get a better situation but it didn’t work.
Have you ran cristal disk mark on yours or another similar utility???
Thx.
Hi Ramiro!
Congratulations on your upgrade and thank you for your comment.
Those speeds do seem slow, especially the sequential write. Which 240 Kingston do you have? They seem to offer a few different models…
If I were to guess, some of the slowness may be due the Inspiron 11 being a relatively entry level system (CPU, RAM etc.) but the majority of the slowness I would attribute to the particular 240 Kingston SSD. Specifically, I believe my write speeds with a Samsung were in the 200-300 MB/s sec range and I believe the read speeds were around 400 MB/s+. I no longer have the machine or I would retest to be sure! If any other readers have experience, please share.
Kingston
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/137815/KINGSTON-SUV400S37240G
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Kingston-SSDNow-V300-240GB/Rating/1817
Samsung
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Samsung-850-Evo-250GB/Rating/2977
Good job on the upgrade and thank you for bringing up the slow(er) write speeds with the 240 Kingston SSD. Hopefully it still boots faster for you and offers a performance boost versus the normal HDD.
Best regards,
-J.D.
I just got a Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series laptop..is it compatible? I know nothing of PCs..
Hi Olivia,
Thank you for your question. Yes, the Inspiron 11 3000 is fully compatible with SSDs. A new high-speed SSD makes for a great upgrade!
Have a great day and enjoy your nice laptop 🙂
-J.D.
If I purchased a dell inspiron 11 3000 series and wanted to immediate upgrade to the ssd would i choose the EMMC or the hard drive option?
Thank you!
Dear Reny,
You would want to purchased the hard drive option. That will insure that you have a space for a full 2.5″ SATA SSD 🙂
Best regards,
-J.D.
Hi Brother I want to install ssd on my laptop 3000 series with my hdd that is 500gb. Can I install both 240gb ssd nd 500gb hdd at the same time?
Dear Saif,
Thank you for your question!
The Inspiron 11 only has one storage slot/bay, so you would need to choose which drive you want and install only that one.
I recommend a SSD and you can now find 500GB+ SSDs for a very nice price on Amazon! (usually less than $70 USD)
Thanks and have a GREAT weekend!
Best regards,
-J.D.