Solved Drive (NVMe) replacement?

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

Hi,

I plan replacing my laptop's primary stock (OS W11) drive. Not that it's giving any issues but has a lower Write vs Read speed i.e. approx. 1.5 GB/s and 2.3 GB/s, respectively.

Have a few questions:

The laptop can only hold 2 drives.

M.2 2230 solid-state drive PCIe NVMe Gen3 x2 NVMe, up to 32 Gbps Up to 1 TB which I have now

And another slot for M.2 2280 solid-state drive PCIe Gen3 x2 NVMe, up to 32 Gbps Up to 2 TB.

1. Can I install PCIe Gen 4 drive, or it won't make any difference and would get Gen 3 speeds?

2. Going in BIOS can the M.2 2280 be made the bootable drive vs. M.2 2230?

3. If yes, than is it possible to restore a reflect back up on it or would need to clean install W11 etc.

4. Any expert suggestions, regarding the brands for M.2 2230 and M.2 2280?

5. Lastly would I notice any improvements (is it worth it) in performance and what to do with the stock M.2 2230?

Hoping to hear your expert suggestions.

Thanks.

From the manual:

Your Inspiron 15 5510 supports one of the following storage options:
One M.2 2230 or M.2 2280 solid-state drive
A combination of two M.2 solid-state drives (M.2 2230 or M.2 2280)

Quandary · Sep 19, 2022

1. A Gen 4 drive is backward compatible so it will work but will only provide Gen 3 speeds
2. Yes
3. Use MR to clone (not backup) the required partitions from the 1st drive
4. Do a search for "best nvme drives for 2022". I recently got a WD Blue 1TB which was best cost/bang performer for my needs. No real advantage in over spec'ing.
5. Marginal improvement for any disk intensive activies (may cut your boot time from 20 sec to 15 sec). Use the old drive to store image and data backups

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

Quandary said:
1. A Gen 4 drive is backward compatible so it will work but will only provide Gen 3 speeds
2. Yes
3. Use MR to clone (not backup) the required partitions from the 1st drive
4. Do a search for "best nvme drives for 2022". I recently got a WD Blue 1TB which was best cost/bang performer for my needs. No real advantage in over spec'ing.
5. Marginal improvement for any disk intensive activies (may cut your boot time from 20 sec to 15 sec). Use the old drive to store image and data backups

Thanks for the reply and answering.

1. I had a feeling installing a Gen 4 drive would not provide any advantage.
2. I didn't see that in BIOS, but did see a raid option.
3. Clone a drive (cloned animals, hope its not too complex), never done it but would give it a try.
4. WD is M2230 or 2280?
5. To sum up no real advantage. I assumed that would improve my laptop's performance dramatically (by increasing/doubling Read Write speeds), since I don't use to desktop online, mostly.

Thanks again!

SIW2 · Sep 19, 2022

If it is is x2 ( 2 lanes ) you wont get the same speed as an x4 slot.

pcie (2.0) x2 is about the same as pcie (3.0) x1

pcie (3.0) x2 is about the same as pcie (4.0 ) x1

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

This is what I get.....

Quandary · Sep 19, 2022

Alexey2912 said:
Thanks for the reply and answering.

1. I had a feeling installing a Gen 4 drive would not provide any advantage.
2. I didn't see that in BIOS, but did see a raid option.
3. Clone a drive (cloned animals, hope its not too complex), never done it but would give it a try.
4. WD is M2230 or 2280?
5. To sum up no real advantage. I assumed that would improve my laptop's performance dramatically (by increasing/doubling Read Write speeds), since I don't use to desktop online, mostly.

Thanks again!

2. You will not see it until you actually have a drive installed
3. It appears as "Clone this disk" under the local disk. You can then select which partitions to clone. Easy peasy.
4. 2280

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

Quandary said:
2. You will not see it until you actually have a drive installed
3. It appears as "Clone this disk" under the local disk. You can then select which partitions to clone. Easy peasy.
4. 2280

Thanks again for answering the queries.
Best regards!

SIW2 · Sep 19, 2022

I am posting this from a 310 motherboard. It has an m.2 nvme connector which I think is 2 lanes.

So if I wanted an nvme disk on this, the x16 slot with an adapter will be faster at least on very big files.

And I havent got the little plastic anchor thing for the m.2 it is an asus thing.

I also bought a b365m on the famous auction site recently, but it has a strange fault which took me ages to check. Never seen a fault like it before.

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

Any idea about better brands for M2230 drives?

Thanks.

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

SIW2 said:
I am posting this from a 310 motherboard. It has an m.2 nvme connector but I think it is 2 lanes.

So if I wanted an nvme disk on this, the x16 slot with an adapter will be faster.

How do I check my laptop's PCI connectors/ 3 lanes etc.?

Thanks.

Quandary · Sep 19, 2022

PS. the steps would be:
1. Clone the disk (could be 30-45 minutes)
2. Boot to BIOS/UEFI
3. Select the new drive as the 1st drive to boot, and disable the old drive from the boot options.
4. Restart the PC and confirm all is well

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

I don't think adaptors can be changed from Gen 3 to 4/5 on a laptop?

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

Quandary said:
PS. the steps would be:
1. Clone the disk (could be 30-45 minutes)
2. Boot to BIOS/UEFI
3. Select the new drive as the 1st drive to boot, and disable the old drive from the boot options.
4. Restart the PC and confirm all is well

Thanks, I will give it a try once I get hold of decent brands for both M2230 and M2280.

SIW2 · Sep 19, 2022

Alexey2912 said:
I don't think adaptors can be changed from Gen 3 to 4/5 on a laptop?

There are pcie to nvme adapters for desktops which work with pcie (4.0 ) and are backward compatible

Amazon.co.uk

I have no idea how you would do it on a laptop.

SIW2 · Sep 19, 2022

Alexey2912 said:
How do I check my laptop's PCI connectors/ 3 lanes etc.?

Thanks.

The laptop manual. Cant remember if siv tells you, it might

SIV - System Information Viewer

rh-software.com

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

SIW2 said:
The laptop manual. Cant remember if siv tells you, it might

SIV - System Information Viewer

SIV - System Information Viewer

rh-software.com

Would this provide any additional info..?

Thanks.

bobkn · Sep 19, 2022

Alexey2912 said:
Any idea about better brands for M2230 drives?

Thanks.

M.2 2230 isn't very common. The usual is 2280.

If I understand the specs for the laptop, both of its M.2 slots can accept 2280 cards. You may do better to confine your search to 2280.

I have an X2 PCI-E M.2 card lying about, but it's old, and it's not NVME. I know of no NVME M2 cards that aren't PCI-E X4.

I wonder about the "X2" thing in the specs for the Inspiron 15 5510. My guess is that if it's real, it is some motherboard limitation. It may be real, based on CrystalDiskMark numbers. (Seem low for an X4 drive.)

stormy13 · Sep 19, 2022

Use this,

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...

crystalmark.info

Unless something is screwy with the drive or laptop it should show the necessary info.

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

stormy13 said:
Use this,

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...

crystalmark.info

Unless something is screwy with the drive or laptop it should show the necessary info.

Thanks, here is what it displays about PCI..... so it can hold both Gen 3 and 4?

Alexey2912 · Sep 19, 2022

bobkn said:
M.2 2230 isn't very common. The usual is 2280.

If I understand the specs for the laptop, both of its M.2 slots can accept 2280 cards. You may do better to confine your search to 2280.

I have an X2 PCI-E M.2 card lying about, but it's old, and it's not NVME. I know of no NVME M2 cards that aren't PCI-E X4.

I wonder about the "X2" thing in the specs for the Inspiron 15 5510. My guess is that if it's real, it is some motherboard limitation. It may be real, based on CrystalDiskMark numbers. (Seem low for an X4 drive.)

No only 1 slot can hold both, either M.2 2280 OR 2230, the other only M.2 2230.

Thanks.

Solved Drive (NVMe) replacement?

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