Mini PCI-e compatibility to SSD upgrade on motherboard IPISB-CU (Carmel2)

[delazaro]

Hi! I have a Pavillion Slimline S5-1114 Desktop with a unused mini PCI-e port on the motherboard that I would like to connect a SSD card, but I am not sure if it is compatible with the SSDs mSATA available on the market or if is there any SSD compatible with mini PCI-e ports.

Could someone give me some help about the compatibilities of this mini pci-e port in the S5-1100 series . This might help a lot of other HP desktop owners.

Thanks,

Walter D Filho

[wb2001]

@delazaro,

Not a good theory.

Mini PCI Express. A small version of the Mini PCI peripheral interface for laptops and mobile devices. Using PCI Express signaling, Mini PCI Express (mPCIe) was originally designed for graphics cards and other peripherals but was later used for storage. The cards plug directly into the motherboard.

M.2 SSDs and mSATA SSDs and are both high-performance storage devices designed for use with small devices such as notebook and tablet computers. An mSATA SSD uses only the SATA interface,  while M.2 SSDs support SATA or PCIe. ... The SATAe-based M.2 drive tells the host if it is PCIe or SATA.

Your unit is not 6Gbps, so expect much lower than shown below.

The interface is only a single PCIe 2.0 lane. The 6Gbps SATA spec allows for up to 750MB/s of bandwidth, but the PCIe 2.0 x1 interface limits read/write speed to 500MB/s. Pair it with a PCIe 1.0 x1 interface and you're down to 250MB/s (and much less in reality due to bus overhead).

[GBilecki]

I'm on a similar boat here with my Envy 23 AIO. I too have an empty mini PCI-e slot labeled MINI_CARD 2 on my motherboard. I think we should be able to insert a mini pci-e to SATA adapter card and then a regular SSD to that adapter. Problem is, even if you manage to make the card work and install the SSD connected to it, it won't be the boot drive. As far as I know for the research that I did on this, booting from the mini PCI-e is not supported by the BIOS. So, there's 2 options here. Option 1 is the more simple but expensive, just replace your spinning disk for an SSD of the same or bigger capacity, clone them and that's it, leave the new SSD working in place of the old HDD. Option 2, cheaper but more complicated, implies to install a smaller capacity SSD in place of the actual HDD, just to boot the machine up and store the most used programs. A 250GB SSD is more than adequate for this. And with the original spinning HDD, connect it to the  mini pci-e to SATA adapter and let it run as a secondary big storage unit. You'll need a "Y" SATA power adapter if you don't have an extra power connector on your power supply though. But the final product will be fast and cheap ($15 for the adapter board, $35 for the 250GB SSD and a couple extra bucks for the "Y" power cable).

Good luck and have fun modding your machine!