Help finding a solid-state drive for an HP Pavilion 15t-cs200

[Chitoparadais]

Hello! I've had an HP Pavilion 15t-cs200 notebook for about 7 years. A few days ago, the 1 TB hard drive failed. Now, I want to install a 1 TB solid-state drive. I'd like to ask for your advice on what brand and type of solid-state drive I should install and what would be worthwhile. What I'm most interested in is that it can be connected and that it will last. Thank you very much! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

What is the product number of your notebook?

There are 6 different product numbers in the  15t-cs200 model series as indicated at the link below.

HP PartSurfer

[Chitoparadais]

Thanks.

Serie number: 5CD9504B58

Product number: 5NL15AV

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Below is the link to the parts list for your specific model HP Pavilion 15t-cs200 CTO.

HP PartSurfer

A CTO (Configured To Order) model notebook means that HP sells these notebooks to sellers based on the hardware they want.

So the parts list for your notebook's serial number shows the parts it came with in the first section.

HP PartSurfer

A 1 TB 5400 mechanical hard drive, 8 GB of memory, Intel 9560 Wi-Fi adapter, an Intel M.2 Optane memory cache used to boost the hard drive's performance, and an Intel  i7-8565U processor with the onboard Intel graphics adapter.

If you look at the second section of the part list, those are the parts that could have come with your CTO notebook.

The good thing to know is that your notebook supports M.2 NVMe SSD's, which are much better performing than what you have now, or even a 2.5" SATA SSD.

HP offered NVMe SSD's up to 512 GB in the model series but if a 500 GB NVMe SSD is not enough storage for your needs, there is no reason why you couldn't install a 1 TB NVMe SSD.

Of course in order to upgrade to a NVMe SSD, you would have to remove the 16 GB M.2 Intel Optane memory device.

So, my advice to you would be since the 2.5" hard drive has failed, just remove it, remove the Intel Optane memory and install a M.2 NVMe SSD in its place.

HP only has the service manual for the original model series but it should be help to you for taking apart the notebook.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP Pavilion 15 Laptop PC

Since you have to take the notebook apart to replace the drive, I recommend you install another 8 GB DDR4-2400 CL17 memory chip in the empty slot so you have double the memory which will also run in the higher performing dual channel mode instead of the single channel mode it is running in now.

Check your notebook's BIOS to see if there is a setting to disable the Intel Optane memory.

I doubt there is, but if there is such a setting, you must disable it before installing a standard M.2 NVMe SSD.

The PCIe slot generation is 3.0.

A Gen 4.0 SSD will work fine, but it will not run at its maximum advertised read/write speeds from the Gen 3 slot.