Hp pavilion laptop 15t-cs200

[Bob08043]

I want to upgrade the same Laptop.  Can you advise me whether I can remove the Optene memory and install the 1TB SSD in that slot and if I do, do I need to remove the HDD?  Or is it better to remove the Optene memory and replace the HDD with a SSD drive? In either case I would do a clean install. 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can remove the Optane memory and install a M.2 NVMe SSD, but before you remove the M.2 Optane device make sure you disable it in the Intel RST software, or the 2.5" drive will be inaccessible.

You can retain the 2.5" drive and use it for additional storage, but you will have to remove Windows from the drive, or the notebook will always want to boot from the SATA drive and not the NVMe SSD.

The notebooks that come with dual drive configurations have no operating system on the 2.5" drive.

The M.2 slot is PCIe Gen 3.0.

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

[Bob08043]

That is a direct answer to my question THANKS.  If I can ask, is there an easy way to remove windows from the hard drive (leaving all the data) without reformatting?  I would move the data to the SSD but this would ensure I kept the backup. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I don't believe that there is a way you can remove Windows and leave everything else intact.

I would copy and paste your user profile folders to a portable hard drive, format the drive and then you can put your user profile folders back on the drive.

[Bob08043]

Thanks very much for the clarification.  Perfect! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[Bob08043]

Yes.  That was excactly the information I needed. as it appeared to be missing from all other discussions.  I am (fairly) confident I can take it from here.  Thanks so much.