Can I upgrade my laptop with an M.2 SSD?

[lorkek]

I have a 1TB HDD in my laptop, I use it every day so I wanted to upgrade it by buying an ssd, a small one like 120GB for the os and system files (not decided yet ofc), so I read the manual, I opened the laptop to see it myself, but I'm just not sure how should I go about this. I also took some pictures.

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It seems to me that on the first picture, there is a slot for an M.2 interface optane or ssd, so my question is, can I buy any type, should i measure the length needed, is there anything else I need to know? Will it work together with my HDD? (I already have a pc with an ssd for system and hdd for other files, but I'll just ask it to be sure.)

Thank you in advance

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Below is the link to the service manual for your notebook.  It supports both SATA and NVMe M.2 SSD's.

See chapter 1.

NVMe M.2 SSDs provide much better read/write speeds than SATA ones do.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05985643

Below is the link to the Crucial memory/SSD report for your notebook.  They offer compatible M.2 SSDs.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/hp---compaq/pavilion-gaming-15-cx0007nq

As far as the M.2 SSD working with the current hard drive...Here are my thoughts...

Notebooks with dual drive configurations are set up at the factory with the 2.5" drive as storage, and the SSD with the operating system.

Since there is an OS on the 2.5" drive, I believe that the notebook will always want to boot from the SSD, even if you change the boot order.  Maybe that is not so but I have not been told otherwise.

You can try these two options...

Make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool. Here is an info link for how to use that utility.

You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive for this.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

Also make a bootable USB installation flash drive using the Media creation tool at the link below.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Temporarily disconnect the 2.5" drive, and then boot from the bootable recovery drive made by the cloud recovery tool, and see if it will install W10 on the M.2 SSD.

If it does, and Windows works fine, connect up the 2.5" drive again, and boot from the other flash drive you made with the Media creation tool.  When you get to the part of the installation process that asks 'Where do you want to install Windows, make sure you have the right disk (the 2.5" one), delete all partitions on the disk, and format it. 

Then exit out of the installer, shut down the PC, it should boot from the M.2 SSD, and the 2.5" drive should be completely empty for storage.

If the cloud recovery tool won't install W10 on the smaller M.2 SSD (if you buy a smaller size), and it was only designed to work on the original drive, use the W10 USB installation flash drive you made with the Microsoft media creation tool to install W10 on the M.2 SSD, and use the above process to format the 2.5" drive.

If you have to use the Media creation tool to install W10, you can install the drivers and available software from the support page.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-gaming-15-cx0000-laptop-pc/20284020

It looks like the M.2 hold down screw is included?  On the silver stanchion within the top of your red circle.

[lorkek]

I think so yes it the screw is included.

When I get the ssd I will post the results. Thank you!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.