Does the Alienware 13 R3 Take an NVMe SSD?
Alienware 13 R3
NVMe storage was observed in reports for this laptop.
- Reports
- 17
- Saw NVMe
- 94%
- Fastest link observed
- PCIe Gen3 ×4
The fastest link we saw in real machines was PCIe Gen3 ×4. That is a floorobserved in field reports, not the slot’s ceiling — a faster drive still works because PCIe is backward compatible; it simply runs at the slot’s speed.
Field reports can’t tell us the physical connector, how many slots are empty, or which M.2 length fits. Check the service manual and the installed drive before you buy.
Reported by field data
- Storage controller:
- Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
- Platform:
- Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v6/7th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers
- Drives seen:
- Samsung SM951/PM951, Samsung SM981/PM981/PM983, SanDisk Extreme Pro / WD Black SN750 / PC SN730 / Red SN700 NVMe SSD
Drives people actually had installed when they ran the report — not a compatibility list, and not the only drives that fit.
Capacities seen
- 256 GB (100%)
Sizes found installed in field reports — not a ceiling. Larger drives work fine.
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How we know
This answer is derived from 17 independent hardware reports for the Alienware 13 R3, of which 94% observed an NVMe drive. We read the PCI device list in each report to tell NVMe apart from SATA.
Check it yourself
On Windows, open Task Manager → Performance and click your disk to see its model and type. On Linux, run lsblk -d -o NAME,TRAN,MODEL and read the TRAN column.
Storage interfaces derived from linuxhw/LsPCI, licensed CC-BY-4.0.