Does HP Elitebook 840 G3 support 2TB m.2 SSD?

[Carlslaw]

My venerable HP Elitebook 840 G3 works well but is very low on storage. Can I replace the 1TB M.2 SSD with a 2TB M.2 SSD?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The Crucial memory report for your notebook indicates that they sell NVMe SSD's up to 4 TB.

HP - Compaq EliteBook 840 G3 | Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | Crucial.com

Your notebook's SSD slot is PCIe Gen 3.0.

While a Gen 4 SSD will work, it will not run at its maximum advertised read/write speeds from the Gen 3 slot.

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

PCIe Speeds and Limitations | Crucial.com

If your notebook has a M.2 SATA SSD, a 2 TB SSD should also work just fine.

Below is the link to the service manual, where you can find the M.2 SSD removal and replacement procedure:

HP ZBook 15u G3 Mobile WorkstationHP EliteBook 850 G3 Notebook PCHP EliteBook 848 G3 Notebook PCHP E...

[Carlslaw]

The current M.2 SSD is a 1TB Samsung EVO 960, which works perfectly as the boot disk. I have to clone that to the replacement M.2. Do you have a recommendation for the replacement? Does changing brands matter? 

[Huffer]

The one you have is a very good SSD, but getting a bit dated. I happen to prefer Samsung and would suggest a 970 or 980 but WD and Crucial also make perfectly good M.2 NVME SSDs which would work fine. Heed @Paul_Tikkanen  on PCIE Gen 4 vs. Gen 3 thing. These days the Gen 4 SSDs don't really cost any more so you can use a Gen 4 it will just be limited to Gen 3 performance.

For cloning I use Macrium Reflect Free Edition. Install on a working computer, launch the app and one of the options is to make a bootable usb thumb drive from the app. You then boot the computer from that thumb drive and it brings up the cloning app in a DOS looking environment. Have the new SSD in an external USB enclosure or adapter and point the direction of the clone from the old to new SSD. Choose to resize partitions proportionally and let the clone do its thing. Then put the new SSD inside the laptop and when you boot it should all be familiar except you have a lot more storage space. Good luck.  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

It shouldn't matter regarding getting another brand drive.

If you get another Samsung drive, you can use the free Samsung Magician software to clone the drive.

Samsung Magician Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

The problem is that Samsung does not make any 2 TB PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD's, so you would have to get the Gen 4.0 980 Pro or 990 Pro 2 TB drive.

If you want a PCie Gen 3,0 drive, I recommend the Crucial P3 2 TB model, but you would have to use different software to clone the drive with.

You will need a USB3/USB3 to NVMe SSD enclosure, such as this:

Amazon.com: SSK Aluminum M.2 NVME SATA SSD Enclosure Adapter, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) to NVME PCI-E ...

You can use the 30-day trial Macrium Home  reflect software to clone a different brand drive:

Macrium Reflect Free Trials

Don't install it until you are ready to go.

Here's their video on how to clone a smaller drive to a larger one:

Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect 8 (youtube.com)