NV ME for Envy 15-ep1000

[steve_h_1919]

Hi all,

My new Envy 15-ep1000 has an open NVMe slot. The open slot seems to be 80mm. The other is occupied by NVMe SAMSUNG MZVL2512HCJQ-00BH1 (512 SSD).

What compatible NVMe would work for the Laptop? Is there a qualified vendors list? The screen print on the MB says "SSD1" and "PCIE OPTANE ONLY".

Any help would be great.

Thanks.

[Huffer]

The Manual does not show a second M.2 slot other than the one right above the 2.5 inch bay as shown on p. 37. 

Manual 

Generally, if the slot would take an Optane module it will also accept a larger capacity M.2 NVME SSD. Optane technology depends on having an NVME interface. Can you describe where this second NVME slot is located on the motherboard?

There is no approved vendor list as HP assumes you are not going to be adding or upgrading the product, which does not mean you cannot. Generally, any NVME with 3rd gen PCIe will work fine. My "go to" is still a Samsung 970 Evo. A 4th gen will work but would downclock to 3rd gen performance. 

[steve_h_1919]

Thanks for the reply.

I will take the advice on the Samsung memory.

Do you have a reference for a current 15.6 inch service manual? 

C06634821.pdf did not indicate that the manual applies to my particular laptop.

Thanks.

[Huffer]

Agreed but that is the Manual HP has posted on the home page for your model. Sorry. I believe this is the right one:

Manual 

This does show a pair of M.2 slots. Clearly shown on p. 31. The specs in the Manual say you can actually create a RAID-0 array with a pair of NVME M.2 SSDs. See the third bullet point under Storage on p. 1. This means both M.2 slots can take an NVME M.2 SSD and you could just not implement RAID and have one for the boot disk and one for storage. If it were my laptop I would do the RAID-0 as it would be crazy fast and you would have the full use of the capacity of both drives. You would have to back up with an external drive however as a RAID-0 is twice as likely to fail since failure of either disk spoils the array.

Post back with any more questions. I'm due for a new laptop pretty soon and gotta admit being very interested in this one.  

[steve_h_1919]

Understand my skepticism. I have built and been using computers since the 80s (the dark ages of DOS/10MB hardrives or no hard drive/5 -1/2 in floppies, etc).

This is my FIRST laptop.  So far, I like it.  Bought it based on the I7-11xxx, 16GB and price point.

It looks like the adding a 2nd NVME is doable. I will try to match the existing SSD. 

I have a 2TB passport backup drive. So, the extra SSD will be additional storage.

Are there any BIOS tricks/traps I need to know about?

Thanks.

[Huffer]

No BIOS tricks or traps unless you want to set up RAID-0 which is implemented in the BIOS. If you did that, it would require reinstalling the OS. Don't knock yourself out trying to find a duplicate SSD if you are not doing RAID. Not sure what HP installed...but quite possibly a duplicate will be hard to find and more expensive than one you can just get off Amazon. 

[AdamQuadmon]

Have you figure it out if it is possible to use the second NVMe slot for a second SSD?
I asked HP assistance but they replied this laptop only have one NVMe slot.
The second slot is phisically present and the laptop itself also came with the Intel Optane app for memory and storage management for RAID configurations.

Any ways to make this work?

[Simbb]

I have the same question.

There IS a second slot for an NVMe M.2 SSD. I installed a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB. The SSD is not listed in the BIOS (Configuration -> UEFI HII Configuration -> Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology).
How do I make it recognisable to the system?

By the way, the link to the manual does not work. Neither the one linked here nor the one on the HP support page. The PDF is not available.

[AdamQuadmon]

On the HP website there is a tool to check for hardware updates. I run it and it found a new firmware for the BIOS, after the update the disk was automatically recognized by the system.

[Huffer]

Manual link works for me