Upgrading SSD Storage

[JamesK12]

Hey everyone, so I recently purchased an HP Envy 15 for school (Needed a good laptop with dedicated graphics and enough RAM to run engineering software for school). After about a month of light gaming and downloading CAD software I am already a big chunk into my 512 GB SSD storage and I was wondering if there is any way of upgrading my storage without violating my warranty (i.e. tampering with my device on my own to make this upgrade). I don't know enough about laptop design in general to confidently do this myself, but I don't know if this route is possible through HP. Does anyone have experience with this type of problem? I am just worried that I will fill up my storage within a year, and then lose functionality of my device long before I anticipated without completely wiping some things from my Laptop. I suppose an external HDD for extra storage and backups could work, but certain files on my laptop take up a lot of space already and I access them almost every day (SolidWorks, MATLAB, Steam, etc...). Also, for this specific model, is it possible to upgrade the amount of RAM on the device? I have 2 8GB RAM slots already but if I needed to add more is that replaceable too without violating the warranty, or even the dedicated GPU? I'm all about upgrades and keeping a device for as long as possible, so that as things become obsolete I can upgrade them without putting myself in a financial hole by buying an expensive new device altogether.

I understand this isn't a major issue and I can live without extra storage, but if I can upgrade it affordably I would love to hear how! Thank you anyone who read this, I appreciate it!

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

The link to your service manual is broken right now so I cannot be real specific but have done quite a bit of this kind of thing. Your memory and storage is upgradeable. You can replace the 512 gig SSD with one as large as your budget allows. 2 TB drives are commonly available. Memory is going to max at 32 gigs (2 x 16) DDR4-2666. The video card is not upgradeable as it is soldered to the motherboard. The warranty will not be affected by doing the RAM and storage upgrade and on most of the recent gaming laptops the Manual actually expressly says that such upgrades are customer authorized. The back cover is not hard to remove to access the upgrade slots. Post back and I will keep looking for the Manual. 

[JamesK12]

Thank you so much for your feedback! I did some more research and since this Laptop has just one storage drive that contains windows 10 OS, I know now that I must ALSO do "SSD Copying" to ensure that my license to windows 10 and all of my settings transfer to the new SSD. Do you understand this process enough to explain to me how safe this is? Are there specific firmware I need to install to do this sort of file transfer, and can I risk altering or destroying my windows 10 OS activation key?

[Huffer]

You do not need to worry about the Key. Windows 10 activates in a whole new way. You can reinstall Windows 10 on that laptop as many times as you wish and it will "just activate". You can do a clean install onto a new SSD in other words. I like clean installs but you can also do a "clone" of the hard disk drive to the new SSD. The SSD needs to be big enough to hold everything that was on the hard drive. Macrium Reflect Free is excellent software for this operation and as it says, is free. I have done this operation countless times and just did it on an HP laptop yesterday so happy to walk you through.