HP Pavilion 15-au006tx M.2 SSD upgrade possible?

[jenson_dj]

Hello guys,

I am planning to buy the HP Pavilion 15-au006tx. Wanted to know whether this has an M.2 Slot to add a Boot SSD?

-Jenson

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

We get this question a lot and right now I cannot advise anyone to buy an HP laptop with the idea of adding an M.2 drive to it when it did not ship with one. There are a couple long-running threads here, one of which seems to have concluded that on certain models the M.2 port is disabled in the BIOS, and another has shown that a model which shows an M.2 slot in the Service manual in fact has no such slot.

See p. 34 of the Service Manual:

Manual

It appears from this Manual that you can have either an M.2 mSSD or a hard drive since it refers to an SSD board and cable. It's also clear that if you can use an M.2 mSSD you are limited to the SATA variety, which has no speed advantage over a 2.5 inch SATA SSD. I would buy it, since the specs are very good and swap the 1 TB 5400 rpm HDD for a 1 TB SATA-III SSD and if 1 TB is not enough storage for you consider putting the 1 TB HDD in an optical caddy. Who uses a DVD drive these days, anyway?

If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.  

[jenson_dj]

Thanks for the reply Huffer. Can you suggest ways of putting a 1TB HDD in an optical caddy? Never heard or done such a setup before.

[Huffer]

That's actually the easiest thing. Just remove the existing optical drive (generally one screw on the bottom-see p. 27 of Manual) and slide in one of these with the HDD in it:

https://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-17-986-024&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC&cm_mmc...

The only issues are that a drive in this kind of contraption cannot be bootable and runs at a slower SATA interface, generally SATA-I. Still fast enough for most tasks...can stream HD video from it, edit powerpoints and excels on it, just not good for really I/O intensive stuff like production Photoshop, video editing, content creation. Good for pure mass storage in other words. 

[edward7693]

hi i recently bought the hp au006tx.i want to upgrade my hdd to ssd.i came to know that u are also trying to do the same.did u do it?did it work?i saw ur questions?did it work.kindly reply me.so that i can do the same.waiting for ur reply.

[jenson_dj]

I haven't bought it yet. But as Huffer mentioned the HDD can easily be upgraded to a SSD. I actually wanted to add a SSD to the existing HDD. Will update here once I buy the laptop and try adding a SSD

[edward7693]

hi .thanks for replying back.lappy is working fine with hdd.hmm next time i will tell u how much time lappy is taking to boot up with normal hdd.ok if u do get to upgrade your lappy let me know.i want to do the same.byeee

[Ratledge]

Unfortunately, in some cases HP leaves the M.2 connector out of the system, like my 2017 Pavilion 15 (AU147) which shows in the manual how to install or replace an M.2 SSD, but you can't do it. Best you can do is replace the hard drive that ships with a 2.5" SATA3 form factor SSD and either remove the original hard drive or use the method where you can put it in the optical carrier. I replaced my 1TB drive with a FireCuda 2TB (hybrid) instead. Works well enough!

[Jp1011]

i have the same model,and I can pretty much guarantee that it doesn't have the M.2 slot.I ha learned it the hard way after purchasing one from amazon.Even though the service guide and crucial(a company that sells ssd's and hard disks) also listed their M.2's to be compatible with the model. sad realization after i opened up the laptop 😞  

by the way ,if I'm wrong ,feel free to tell me where that damned slot is! 

[kevin-t]

Hello,

Thank you for posting in this thread. Unfortunately based on when the last response was made, I have closed this thread to help keep comments current and up to date. We recommend starting a new thread for your issue by clicking here.
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