Hi msuk,
Dell Studio XPS 8000 uses Intel P55 chipset and support SATA operations at SATA II speed (300 MB/s). Dell has tested this system with 3.5" SATA 7200rpm drives of upto 1.5 TB capacity. The answers to your questions are as follows :
- There are two types of SSD's available viz mSATA SSD and SATA SSD. Your system does not support mSATA SSD. You may install any SATA SSD and it should work with the system. However, Dell has not tested this system with SSD drives.
- Yes, the system will pick up SSD drive just like a normal hard drive.
- Yes, you can mix SSD and HDD
- Yes, SATA III drives are backwards compatible and should work on your system, though, at SATA II speed (300 MB/s)
- Yes, you can deploy an image of your current drive onto a SSD drive using a cloning software.
For installing/replacing parts, you may refer to Service Manual.
Note : Please follow safety instructions in manual before installing parts in system.
Hope this helps.
