Upgrade HDD/SSD

[Xe1021]

I have a HP Pavilion x360 - 15-cr0091ms laptop.  It comes with a 128gb SSD. It also has a 2.5” SATA expansion slot. I want to know if I can add a SATA 2.5” SSD instead of a SATA HDD.  If yes, what is the maximum SSD I can add? I want to add 1tb 2.5” SATA SSD.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If your PC did not come with a 2.5" drive from the factory, most likely none of the parts are there to add a 2.5" SSD.

it would be much easier and cheaper for you to replace the 128 GB SSD with one having a greater storage capacity.

Below is the link to the service manual.  The parts you need to add a 2.5" drive can be found in chapter 3 on page 19.

HP Pavilion x360 15 Convertible PC Maintenance and Service GuideIMPORTANT! This document is intended...

Only the rubber sleeve is orderable from HP...over $33.00 just for that part alone.

[Xe1021]

Hi Paul, thanks for your quick response. I managed to find the rubber sleeve and the SATA cable from eBay at a reasonable price.  I want to retain the 128gb NVMe M.2 SSD so I don't need to reinstall or clone the operating softwares.  I want to add a 1tb SATA3 SSD for additional storage so I can move most non-programming files from the NVMe M.2 SSD to the SATA3 SSD.  From the Service Guide, it did mention the support of dual drives but it only listed the NVMe M.2 SSD and a SATA HDD as a combination.  It didn't mention the combination of a NVMe M.2 SSD & a SATA3 SSD as a dual-drive combo.  But both Crucial and Kingston websites listed 2.5" SATA3 SSD as compatible, upgradable storage drives for the HP Pavilion x360 Convertible 15-cr0091ms laptop.  I am just not sure the laptop can support two SSDs (NVMe & SATA) operating at the same time.  

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

You should be fine with a 2.5" SSD.

This one provides the best performance for the price, in my opinion.

Amazon.com: Western Digital 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm, Up to 5...

[Xe1021]

Hi Paul, I went ahead and upgraded to a Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD.   However, the HP Pavilion x360 convertible laptop doesn't recognize the drive. It is not  showing up anywhere in the system.  Whereas the Crucial disk management software recognize the drive as Drive 0.  It is obviously connected correctly.  Will that be a Bio issue or a system support issue that my HP laptop can't see this new SSD in the system?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Sounds to me like you have to initialize the drive using the Windows disk management utility.

Initialize new disks | Microsoft Docs

[Xe1021]

You are right.  I did the initialization of the SSD and assigned a drive number.  It is working now.  Thank you very much, again!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[Xe1021]

Hi Paul, with the new D-drive I installed, I am trying to move non-Apps related folders from C to D to free up space.  However, there are certain folders I couldn't move such as the Users folder, Documents and Settings and temp folders.  Mail folder is taking most storage space.  There is no 'Location' tab in Properties of those folders for me to move them ( I managed to move other folders thru the 'Location' tab from C to D).  Is there a way to do it or should I just clone the C-drive to D-drive and then remove the duplicated contents?  Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

Note: I changed where new content is saved through: Start>Setting>Storage>Change where new content is saved.  But I need to move existing content from C-drive to D-drive to free up more space. Then I ran into the problem above for certain folders.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Unfortunately, I would not know the answer to your question.

What I do know is that your users folder is a Windows system folder and is part of Windows.

What you may want to do is to create a duplicate set of those user folders (Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, etc.) on your D:\ drive, copy and paste the file contents of your user folders on the C:\Drive to the new ones, and then delete the contents of those folders.

The mail folder, I would have no idea what you can do about that.