OMEN 15-AX033DX SSD Upgrade

[SheltieDad]

It's time to upgrade my SSD in my Omen. I currently have the stock 128 gig and am just about out of room on it with the latest Win 10 update. Would like to go to 512 gig and will probably be swapping out the mechanical HD for a solid state drive as well. After a LOT of digging, I am down to these 2 choices and am wondering if there are any known compatibility issues.

SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2 2280 512GB PCIe Gen3. X4, NVMe 1.3 64L V-NAND 2-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7P512BW

or

SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB PCIe Gen3. X4, NVMe 1.3 64L V-NAND 3-bit MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V7E500BW

Any glaring issues here???   Thanks and look forward to any input offered.

[Huffer]

Yes we did get reports of compatibility issues with the Samsung 960 series on that model and assume there would be similar issues with the 970s. We are not seeing as many issues with 7th and 8th gen processor models but yours is an earlier 6th gen processor and was one of the first to use NVME disks so compatibility issues are more likely on older platforms trying to use hardware that was issued after the laptop. I had one of the Omen 15-ax series as my Expert loaner machine a couple years ago and personally upgraded the standard 128 gig SATA M.2 to a 512 gig Samsung PM961 NVME M.2 disk. It was actually one I had purchased from the HP Parts Store when, for a brief period, they were selling them for crazy low prices (not now). 

So I can tell you from personal experience this one would work:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-PM961-Polaris-512GB-MZVLW512HMJP-00000/dp/B06XJ95YVR/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UT...

Your Service Manual

under the hood-M.2 slot

The 970 Evo or Pro might work, could work but I say there is a decent chance it will not. 

Post back with any more questions and please accept as solution if this is the info you needed. 

[SheltieDad]

THANK YOU for the reply...This is info that saved me a bunch of time/money trial and erroring potentially...

What are your thoughts on this one.....Looks to be the same thing with a lot lower sticker price....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Polaris-PM961-512GB-PCIe-NvMe-M-2-OEM-SSD/283127646471?hash=item41e...

Any issue with migration other than Samsung's migration software not wanting to work properly with it??

[Huffer]

Yeah that is one heck of a deal...that is about what I paid for them when HP made the pricing error in the Store. 

There are lots of ways to migrate the data. I prefer making an image of the old drive and storing it externally then restoring it to the new disk. I use Acronis True Image and Samsung software is a lite version of that. 

You could remove the 128 gig disk (its SATA, right?) and put it in an external USB adapter, with the new blank M.2 inside the laptop. Then just do a clone or copy of the external usb 128 gig over to the new NVME 512. 

[SheltieDad]

So if I go this route, what would be  good recommendation for an SSD to replace the 1tb mechanical drive? I was thinking of doing this one in the 1tb version, but didn't know if I could go bigger than 1tb if I am also swapping out the boot SSD and going from 128 to 500/512...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147673&ignorebbr=1

I am probably going to go ahead and do both at the same time so I only have to crack my laptop open once.....Thanks again for your guidance...

[Huffer]

Thats the Cadillac of 2.5 inch SATA SSDs. So can't go wrong, but with 2.5 inch SATA SSDs compatibility is not really a "thing". Just about anything on the market will work so you can buy on price alone as long as the disk is made by someone whose name you have heard of...Sandisk, WD, etc. make very good ones. I think replacing the HDD with SSD provides a much lower order of improvement in performance than going from SATA to NVME with the M.2 boot disk. An exception would be if you are editing video or large batches of photos or any other content creation type work where you are reading from/writing to the storage disk in large chunks. The SSD will be 4 or 5 times faster than a HDD. For daily stuff, even watching a stored video file, the upgrade to SSD will not make a lot of difference. 

[SheltieDad]

I am 99.9% positive I can work my way through the HDD for SSD swap, but I may be in over my head on this clone/swap of the boot SSD....I assume I would make a bootable flash drive to clone them the way you had mentioned (using the sata ssd via external adapter)????   Just trying to figure out all of the logistics to this before I get committed to making purchases....

On a side note, the eBay link I referenced is for a apart ending in "000H1" as opposed to the one you listed as "00000"....Anything to worry about here???

[Huffer]

No the different numbers are internal Samsung references...same piece of hardware. 

To do a disk to disk clone you pick an app like Acronis, Samsung Migration Tool, whatever. You get a version of it that is on bootable media. You can't do this with Windows running has to be done in a preboot environment.  As I said, remove the 128 gig SATA M.2. Put it in one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/SHINESTAR-Adapter-Converter-Portable-External/dp/B0768V1SK7/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF...

Put the new NVME disk (blank) inside the laptop. Remove the HDD as it can muck things up. Now when you boot up from the cloning software disk you will enter an unfamilar interface, the cloning software. You will see a list of the disks, which will be the external USB 128 and the internal NVME 512 gig. Pick the 128 as the source and the 512 as the target and select "clone"...if given the option do "proportional resize" so the clone fills up the new disk. Going from smaller to larger is a piece of cake. Larger to smaller is where its tough. Finish the clone. Take out the 2 external usb disks and boot up. You should be running the same OS annd settings and apps as before. Shut down and put the HDD in and you are good to go. 

[SheltieDad]

PRE-BOOT......NOW it makes sense to me.....I have no idea why I wan't getting that concept....Sounds like  apiece of cake now....

Just to verify, I can or cannot go bigger than 1tb if I swap from the mechanical to an SSD for mass storage???

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

You can go as large as your wallet will allow....my Omen actually came with a 2 TB mechanical drive from the factory and I have seen up to 4 TB SATA 2.5 inch SSDs. Very pricey but they exist.  

And there is a lot of good info here and a lot of effort went into it so you may want to "accept as solution" to make it easier to find this from a search engine.