HP Envy 795-0010-replacing-upgrading original Sky Hynix NVMeSSD-experience or advice welcome

[Ferrumic]

Although it still has some margin left, the available margin on the Sky-Hynix 512gb SSD that came installed on this machine is now at a stage where I'm planning to upgrade and replace it. I'd welcome any advice or hints from anyone that has experience of this, and pose some questions below.

I have a paid version of Macrium Reflect to clone with, and two new 1tb SSDs available; a WD Black SN850X (without heatsink) or a Samsung 970 EVO Plus. These are M-factor and one or the other (see below) will be installed in the NVMe M.2 slot on the motherboard in place of the Sky SSD.

1. BIOS - this is set to boot from the UEFI device i.e. the Sky SSD. The current BIOS version is F42, and as it runs OK, I haven't updated it. Question? When I open the machine and replace the Sky SSD with the cloned Samsung or WD, will it require any changes to the BIOS boot order naming, or will the new SSD be automatically recognised and no changes required? Obviously, that  can only be changed after booting up, if needed.
2. Samsung or WD? I had planned on using Samsung, but I believe there are some firmware updates needed using Magician.  Any recommendations or personal experience on either? The Sky doesn't appear to have a heatsink, and I wasn't planning on one for the replacement.
3. My understanding is that the standard Windows SSD drivers will work on either of these, although there is a driver update for Samsung, but nor, as far as I can see, for WD. Any info?
4. Any other help or recommendations would be welcome.

I have previously cloned HDDs to SSDs in W7 machines, but this is a new scenario for me. I did open up the Envy a while ago to double the memory, so I'm OK with that part of the job.

Thanks

[Prométhée]

hi

"Although it still has some margin left, the available margin on the Sky-Hynix 512gb SSD that came installed on this machine is now at a stage where I'm planning to upgrade and replace it"

is this model right?

https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c06016269
already modified, because there it is indicated:

256 GB TLC Solid State Drive

Size: 1 TB
Interface: SATA
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM

product page error, or replaced?
did you use the hdd disk for storage?

the samsung, is regularly recommended here, but not the pro version  it seems to me , and works with many models
already see the difference in price / performance announced

there is never anything certain, but if you make a complete clone of the SSD in place, the new one will be practically identical, so no reason, except error, to have to modify the bios!

yes  try without touching the bios update, indeed if it works well, sometimes it goes very badly, you could consult the countless messages about the failed bios

pro version but no news

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Need-help-to-upgrade-my-HP-Envy...

here ok

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Is-ssd-Samsung-980-PRO-MZ-V8P50...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/SSD-Upgrade-for-HP-Envy-795-003...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&q...

[Ferrumic]

Thanks for your reply.

The SkyHynix SSD is a 512gb model, and came with the machine. It currently has 19% "life" remaining, which takes me up to about mid to late summer. However, I want to change it for the brand-new cloned Samsung or WD SSD, with double the capacity, well before it gets to the threshold of 5%. This should give me some allowance if I need to put the old SSD back in, if there are problems.

The other internal drive in this machine is a 1tb HDD, which is supposedly bootable, but only to Recovery (as far as I can see). That will stay as it is.

As you say, the Sky SSD runs fine on this BIOS version and the new one should do the same. The updates offered by HP don't seem to offer much, but I have made a recovery USB for the latest recommended version. I do not like updating this at all, and have had past problems.

The Sky runs with Windows driver(s), rather than Sky's own, but  depending on which of my replacement SSDs I choose to use, I'll probably use manufacturer drivers eventually.

Thanks for the links. I think the 970 EVO will be my choice, but there have been reported problems with the 980, and firmware updates are needed to solve.

I like to plan this sort of thing well in advance, and try to cover all angles, hence my post and questions.

[Prométhée]

ok mistake

 795-0010na PC Product Specifications

I don't know why, it gave me the other model, not the 0010na
so:

512 GB PCIe NVMe TLC M.2 Solid Stat

and

hdd

Size: 2 TB
Interface: SATA
Rotational speed: 7200 rpm

No not at all, it would make a big fat disk, just for recovery
moreover, you may have not modified a special recovery partition of more or less 16gb
you must therefore be able to use this HDD disk, for personal data, music, photos, videos, etc.:

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