What M.2 SSD will work with my Omen 17 inch (looks like the 17-W200xx series w/ flat keyboard deck)

[mtomasetti]

I'd like to put an M.2 SSD into my HP Omen laptop.  Researching online a bit, it looks like I have the Omen 17-W200xx series, because the deck of the keyboard is flat rather than rolling off at the edges.  Also, the top case is NOT divided into "4-quardrants", instead it has the single smooth cover with the Omen symbol in the middle.  I don't understand why the HP System Information (FN-ESC) does not give this information.  Here is a copy of the HP System Information:

Product name : OMEN by HP Laptop

Product number : X7N81AV

Serial number : (above says not to include this)

Software build ID : 17WW1OMT604#SABA#DABA

Motherboard ID : 825D

Service ID : (probably not needed)

BIOS : F.38-05/24/2017

Keyboard revision : 83.48

Total memory : 8 GB

Processor name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz

[banhien · Accepted solution]

@mtomasetti 

Your machine is a CTO machine (OMEN BY HP - 17-W200 CTO). You can use Crucial P1 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD's. For example

     https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/hp-omen-17-w200-cto/CT13043382

You can also use M.2 NVMe SSD's from Samsung 970 EVO series or similar from other vendors.

Regards.

[mtomasetti]

Thanks Banhien,  I'll try one of those and report back here about how it goes.

[mtomasetti]

Thanks for your advice Banhien. I thought I'd leave some notes here, in the hopes of easing the learning curve for others like me who are new to HP's.

I've had good luck with the Samsung SSD's (SATA style) in the past, so I bought the Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe which was about $100 at Amazon.

I looked at some video's on YouTube which showed the installation for other OMEN models, but there were still some tricks to learn when working with my model. Here's how it all went:

1. Opening the cover was a bit challenging.

There were 14 screws in total. First, I removed the battery and found 5 screws in there. The other 9 screws were around the edge except for 1 which was near the middle of the case's bottom. That one was holding the DVD player in place and when I took out that screw, I had to remove the entire DVD player from the laptop to help get the back off. The DVD player just pulls straight out the side of the laptop once the screw is removed.

Once the battery, screws, and DVD were out, I used a small piece of plastic to pry the edge of the back case away from the rest starting next to the battery chamber near the hinges at the back of the laptop. With the battery out, it was simplest to pull that part of the edge away first.

The metal outcroppings of the USB connectors prevented the case on the sides from pulling away, so I had to hook a fingernail on the slender piece of the case over the USB metal in order to pull the case off. Once the metal pieces on both sides were cleared, the case came off with some careful but forceful pulling. I was surprised how much force was needed.

I did NOT put the case all the way back on for the next several steps. I just let the laptop rest in the case, no "snapping in place", no screws, no DVD player and no battery. I suppose if the power had gone out in the middle of any critical operation below (with the battery missing), I could have encountered some problems. I was lucky.

2. Installing the SSD was easy

Push it into the slot; put a screw in the end.

3. Reboot, install a driver for the new SSD, run migration

The Samsung driver installer would not install the driver until the new SSD was installed into the laptop. So, I rebooted to the HDD and installed the driver.

I think the new SSD appeared in Win 10 when the driver was installed. If not, I used Disk Manager to fiddle until it showed-up. Then I ran the Samsung disk migration utility. That took about an hour, I had 200MB to transfer.

4. Unplug the old HDD

The mini SATA connector for the old HDD had to be unplugged to boot to the new SSD. After the latch was flipped open, it took me a minute to realize the connector had to be lifted up, then pulled out. You cannot just pull it straight out.

5. Reboot to the new SSD

On the first boot to the new SSD, the OMEN just said, "System disk not found" and shut itself off. I turned it back on and tapped ESC until the HP start-up options showed. In the BIOS settings (F10) the new SSD did not show-up as a boot option. So, I rebooted with ESC and chose F9 (choose a session boot volume). The new SSD was listed and I chose that. The boot-up to Win 10 took about 10 seconds.

6. While booted to the new SSD, I tried to make a recovery USB stick using the provided Win 10 facilities, but it said that it could not create the recovery stick - no explanation was provided. So, I just reconnected the old HDD, booted to that and made a recovery stick.

7. Set the default boot to the new SSD

Using power-on and ESC to get to the BIOS settings, I found that both drives were now listed as potential boot drives, so I set the new SSD as first.

Everything runs remarkably fast now - well worth the effort.

[banhien]

@mtomasetti 

Thanks for posting back.

Congratulations

Regards.