SSD type clarification.

[iamArthik]

I am thinking of having a SSD for my laptop model 15DA1030TU. It comes with M.2 SSD expansion slot, so my confusion is weather this model supports PCIe, NVMe sticks or Just M.2 SATA? If yes, what’s the expansion limit 500GB or 1TB? Any assistance with clearing my doubt would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Your notebook's M.2 slot supports both SATA and NVMe SSD's.

See chapter 1 of the service manual for the supported drive types...

h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06691790

The drive capacities listed in the service manual are just what HP offered in the model series.

If you wanted to install a 1 TB drive that would be fine.

[iamArthik]

Hello Paul,

Thank you for the detailed information. Well, that’s where the confusion began, I followed the manual and I was relived, Perhaps when I  visited a nearest HP service centre, and the support staff was unsure if the NVMe stick sits in the M.2 slot. I would like to know if the motherboard have allotment for a single notch stick (NVMe drive) since the SATA drives comes with 2 notches.

Additionally, is the NVMe protocol supported in the bios?

It would be great if  I get an answer an to the above, will clear all the smog!! Thanks in advance!! Will look forward for a response. 🙂

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

Your notebook's M.2 slot has one notch but most of the HP notebooks M.2 slots have one notch--even if they only support SATA drives.

That is where folks make a mistake when they don't read the manual.

Lots of posts on this forum...I installed a NVMe drive and the notebook doesn't boot up, or it is not detected in the BIOS.

The first thing I check before I reply is to see if the slot supports SATA only, NVME only, or both.

Almost invariably when I see one of those posts, it is because they looked at the slot, assumed it had one key and so it was NVMe.  Wrong.

You can install a two notch SATA M.2 SSD in your notebook and it would fit and work just fine. 

There is no second key on a SATA only M.2 slot on any HP notebook that I know of to block a NVMe drive from installing.

Since the service manual indicates a M.2 drive is supported, it should show up in the BIOS just fine.  Plug and play.

But this is important...if you plan on using the 2.5" drive for storage, you need to remove Windows from the 2.5" drive, or the notebook will always want to boot from the 2.5" drive, not the NVMe M.2 drive.

What I recommend is to temporarily disconnect the 2.5" drive, make sure the notebook can boot from the NVMe drive, then remove Windows from the 2.5" drive and you should be good to go with dual storage.

[iamArthik]

Now this boosts my confidence in going with a NVMe drive. I will ensure to remove the OS from 2.5” drive. Many  thanks to you Paul,You’re awesome! Stay safe, until next time. 🙂 Cheers!! 😄

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

Please post back and let us know how your SSD upgrade project went.

You stay safe too!

[iamArthik]

Hi Paul,

wishing you well.

Many thanks for all your guidance. I was able to upgrade the M2 NVMe stick along with additional ddr4 RAM. It was all plug and play, had no issues in bios. Removed the OS from 2.5” drive, now the laptop runs smooth as butter. Thank you!!

Take care. 🙂

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, and thanks for letting us know that your hardware upgrade project was a big success.

Enjoy!