Confused - Elitebook 840 G1 and the SSD m.2 slot 42mm - SATA or PCIe, or both?

[fasst]

I've been looking for a SSD disk for the m.2 slot on this notebook but it is a bit confusing when I see the slot, with one knotc,  that that I have learned is a PCIe slot.

"Regarding how to tell the difference between an M.2 SATA and M.2 PCIe drive, it all depends on the number of notches (keys) on the end of the drive (the end with the connector which goes into the M.2 socket)."
"Drives with a single notch have a single 'M' key and are PCIe based, currently either x2 or x4 PCIe (like the Samsung XP941). Drives with two notches have an 'M' key and a 'B' key and are SATA based (like the MyDigitalSSD SC2)."

Mydigitaldiscount.com sells the MyDigitalSSD 128GB Super Cache 2 42mm SATA III 6G M.2 NGFF SSD and states it is compatible with the 840 G1. (Users also confims it)

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/m.2-ngff-ssd-compatibility-list.html

So what is this this slot on the 840?

See attached picture of the slot and the MyDigital SSD card.

And where is the HP/Intel product for this slot? I have read that Intel has released it but I can't find it, no product nbr. and nowhere to be found.

[Andreas86]

I've tried to different m.2 NGFF SATA drives (64GB) without success on my HP Elitebook 840 G1. My plan was to have a second storage as real-time backup solution for existing "normal" 2.5 inch SSD. Has anybody a running NGFF SSD? Which one? Which BIOS version?

[delian77]

Have you found what m.2 SSD works?

I want to get one , but so far I am confused too

[fasst]

No I'm sorry. I still can't find any Intel version, as they announced a long time ago.

[bivoy]

within next 2 weeks I will test 256GB Transcend M.2 SSD

TS256GMTS400

[bivoy]

So my 42mm M.2  256GB Transcend arrived yesterday, and it works ... But was not easy to make it work, forget plug and play, as BIOS is in UEFI mode with combination of Win 8.1, and fastboot bios skips detection of new devices.

SO after installation there was no SSD visible in Windows, just my std 500GB HDD. Actually I do not know how I made it work, but I tried in BIOS :

turn of and on msata device 

switch to RAID (then  blue screen in Win ) and back

and then after reboot SSD appeared in Win device manager

now it time to move OS to it ....

[bivoy]

done, os migrated with paragon move to ssd, working fine

[anchor]

bivoy, thanks for sharing your experience, it helped me in getting my M2 SSD working in HP Elitebook 840 G1. I use it as 2nd hard dsik (drive d: )

when i first plugged in the SSD (256GB ADATA Premier Pro SP900 M.2 2242) into the M2 slot , it did not show up in windows 8.1. I tried turing off mSATA in bios options, and also turned of AHCI and enabled RAID, just like you did. Rebooted the machine, which obviously did not boot into windows. I powered off, and changed the settings back to the way it was (turned ON the mSATA, and set it back to AHCI) then rebooted, now I see the 2nd hard disk !!

some trick that is. it works any ways. hope it helps others googling for this.

[Saqman]

hi im abit of a newbie at this. so just would like some clarification on this SSD your using does it fit into the slot shown in the attached pcle picture at the top of this thread by user fasst

[sirgap]

Thank you Bivoy and Anchor for the lead and share this very useful info. My ADATA M.2 2242 just arrived and installed running within 5mins. I wish HP would just do 512GB SSD and life would be much simpler.

For those of people who is still confused with the different number of spaces between pins slot different to on the laptop elitebook 840. Dont worry it works. 

Just buy the 2242 model e.g. ADATA. It will fit perfectly.

Follow instruction from Bivoy/Anchor.

Then go to disk management in windows and format it.