Conflicting info regarding HD upgrade to SDD for 15-dw2025cl 10th gen i5

[Krlz88]

Hey guys, I have a Laptop 15-dw2025cl - 10th GEN i5 for which I want to upgrade the storage, the problem is I am finding lots of conflicting info, according to the Crucial website it is compatible with something like this

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/hp-compaq/hp-15-dw2025cl

I haven't been able to find any useful instructions on how to replace from the stock HD to sdd M.2, I even opened the laptop myself and didn't see where an M.2 would go just the regular 2.5 drive.

My questions are:

- What is the highest SDD TB capacity upgrade compatible for this specific model?

-Can i actually upgrade to an nvme plce like the one in the link?

-And finally, i am open to any product recommendation as long as its at least 1TB SDD

Thanks for any help!

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Yes, your notebook has a M.2 slot that supports NVMe SSD's.

Your notebook's M.2 SSD slot is PCIe Gen 3.0.

A Gen 4 SSD will work but will not run at its maximum advertised read/write speeds from the Gen 3 slot.

This table provides the maximum transfer speeds each PCIe slot generation can provide:

PCIe Speeds and Limitations | Crucial.com

If you want a PCIe Gen 4.0 drive, the Crucial T500 would be fine.

Crucial T500 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD | CT1000T500SSD8 | Crucial.com

PCIe Gen 3.0:  The P3:

Crucial P3 1TB PCIe M.2 2280 SSD | CT1000P3SSD8 | Crucial.com

Alternatives:

PCIe Gen 4.0:

Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive, Seq. Read Spe...

PCIe Gen 3.0:

Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 980 SSD 1TB PCle 3.0x4, NVMe M.2 2280, Internal Solid State Drive, Storage for P...

HP only has the service manual for the original 15-dw0xxx model series available, but it should be of help to you for opening up the notebook to install the M.2 SSD:

HP Laptop - 15-dw2025cl - Setup and User Guides | HP® Support

There is no information or programs that will tell you how large a capacity NVMe SSD you can install.

Generally, the sky's the limit as long as the drive is single-sided.

[Krlz88]

Thank you so much for the thorough reply! I was looking at the chart but i'm not sure what the "lane" column means, is that the amount of slots? Based on the last part of your response, does that mean I am able to upgrade to a single PCle M.2 of say 2TB or maybe even 4TB? This one caught my eye since it's one of your suggestions but the 2TB version:

https://www.crucial.com/ssd/p3-plus/ct2000p3pssd8/ct21736608

Also, now that you explained I am able to upgrade to an M.2... what if I decide to keep the original HDD for storage and add an M.2 for the OS and primary use, does that limit the TB I can get for the M.2?

Ultimately, I want to keep this laptop until its completely obsolete so the upgrades seem to be the way to go.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The number of PCIe lanes is what the M.2 SSD PCIe slot has.

1 - 4.

Yours has 4 lanes.

You can retain the mechanical hard drive and use it for storage only.

I recommend that when you install the new SSD, temporarily disconnect the hard drive and install Windows on the SSD.

Notebooks that come from the factory that have dual storage configurations have no operating system on the 2.5" drive.

If you leave the drive connected, and install Windows on the SSD you will most likely find that the notebook will automatically boot from the SATA hard drive first and not the SSD.

By temporarily disconnecting the drive, the Windows boot manager should automatically switch to the SSD to boot from.

Changing the boot order is normally a fruitless endeavor and, in some notebooks, the NVMe drive will not even show up in the boot order.

If you reconnect the drive and the Windows boot manager switches back to boot from the hard drive, you will have to clean the disk, format it and use it for storage only.

[Krlz88]

That's really good to know, much appreciated!

If I may bother you with one more question... I ran the command wmic memphysical get maxcapacity.

and according to it, my laptop has a max ram capacity of 32gb, but the manual states 16gb. Which one is correct?

I am looking at buying this kit: https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr4/ct2k16g4sfra32a

which seems compatible and since the price for 2400 and 3200 is the same, would it hurt to get the 3200?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Since the Crucial memory report indicates your notebook should support 2 x 32 GB of memory, and you ran the Windows command to check the memory and it reported 32 GB is supported, I don't see any reason why the 2 x 16 GB memory kit you want to buy shouldn't work.

Just note that the memory will run at 2666 MHz because that is how fast your notebook's processor/chipset can run the memory at.

[Krlz88]

Awesome! Now that I know exactly what I need I can browse around to find a good deal.

Thanks a million 😊 hope you have a great weekend!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

You have a great weekend too!