New M.2 drive

I need to get a larger M.2 drive for my laptop, so how do i know which drives will work ok with my Laptop, tried running the scanner on the Crucila website but it isnt working.

What laptop do you have? The question boils down to whether you have nvme or sata and what size m.2 drive you can physically support.

I know that you list your system as an HP Zbook, but do you have the exact model?

In addition, some manufacturers, such as Crucial, will allow you to plug in the model number and they will tell you which of their SSDs are compatible. But I am still interested in getting the model number myself to do a little research.

Look at the storage specification in your user manual or service manual. It tells you the form factor, the generation of your PCIe, as well as the limitations on size of drive.
(Drives of later generation are backward compatible)
For example Mine says this:

Working backwards from your 842D motherboard, this may be the general type of laptop: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06002455

For these, Crucial offers:

Laptops that support M.2 drives can support either SATA or NVME SSDs. You have to look at the specs to see what it supports. Sites that help you select SSDs do not support all laptops. You might have to look elsewhere to find out what type of SSD. your laptop supports.

Laptops generally come with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB SSDs. Most should at least support 1 or 2 TB SSDs. What size you get is up to you.
For example, I have found the following SSD support for my laptops:

Acer SF315-41G-R6MP:
* M.2 SATA
Number: 1

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 (2022):
* M.2 NVMe (PCIe Gen4x4), or
* M.2 NVMe (PCIe Gen3x4)
Number: 1 or 2

Acer SF315-41G-R6MP SSDs:
Original: Micron_1100 (256GB)
Current: ADATA SU800 1TB)

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 (2022) SSDs:
Original: #1: Intel 670p (512GB), #2: unused
Current: #1: Samsung 980 (1TB), #2: Samsung 980 (1TB)

A couple of other things to take into consideration:

1) Physical dimensions. M.2 cards come in different sizes. 22 x 80 mm (known as a type-2280), 22 x 30 mm (type 2230), and several additional sizes. By far the most common is the 2280, but double-check before purchase.

2) Also related to physical dimensions, but for the thickness lather than the width and length is whether the card is single-sided or double-sided. Some laptops can accommodate a double-sided card (a card that has components on both sides) while some will not. If in doubt, go with a single sided card. Coincidentally, many systems will state that the maximum size of the card they support is 2 TB but that is often simply because at the time that was the largest single-sided card you could get. I've tried one of the new single-sided 4 TB cards in multiple systems that stated a limit of 2 TB and it has worked in every system that I have tried it in thus far.

hsehestedt said:

I know that you list your system as an HP Zbook, but do you have the exact model?

In addition, some manufacturers, such as Crucial, will allow you to plug in the model number and they will tell you which of their SSDs are compatible. But I am still interested in getting the model number myself to do a little research.

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HP ZBook G5 17.3" FHD Mobile Workstation with NVIDIA Quadro P3200 6GB Graphics

Bikeit said:

HP ZBook G5 17.3" FHD Mobile Workstation with NVIDIA Quadro P3200 6GB Graphics

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It's in the list I provided above (post 5).


There's a service manual for the series: https://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06252835.pdf It's a mere 213 pages. It doesn't show any heatsinks for its 2280 drives.

I presume that the Crucial upgrades are still correct. HP - Compaq HP ZBook 17 G5 Mobile Workstation | Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | Crucial.com

(A number of 2280 NVME drives are listed. Some are Gen 4, some Gen3.)

What sort of upgrade do you ("Bikeit") want? I see that series came with M.2 drives as small as 256MB, and as large as 2TB.

bobkn said:

It's in the list I provided above (post 5).

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06002455

There's a service manual for the series: https://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06252835.pdf It's a mere 213 pages. It doesn't show any heatsinks for its 2280 drives.

I presume that the Crucial upgrades are still correct. HP - Compaq HP ZBook 17 G5 Mobile Workstation | Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | Crucial.com

(A number of 2280 NVME drives are listed. Some are Gen 4, some Gen3.)

What sort of upgrade do you ("Bikeit") want? I see that series came with M.2 drives as small as 256MB, and as large as 2TB.

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Im looking to replace the current 1TB drive with 2TB drive.

I know the motherboard in the laptop is a few years old so im assuming the latest, fastest M.2 drive would be a waste of money, so as there is a hugh range to choose from Like Samsung, Crucial, Sabrent is there a way to help you choose one that isnt a waste of money.

Bikeit said:

Im looking to replace the current 1TB drive with 2TB drive.

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Makes sense.

If I was doing that, I'd want to mount the new M.2 drive in another slot to do the cloning. I hope that HP provided all the necessary hardware to permit that. (I'm think of the funk bracketry Dell uses on some of its models. I see no indication that HP does anything like that in the Z Books.)

There are a number of YouTube videos on upgrades. Here's a quick one from HP:
Looks like it's simpler than for many laptops.

Bikeit said:

I know the motherboard in the laptop is a few years old so im assuming the latest, fastest M.2 drive would be a waste of money, so as there is a hugh range to choose from Like Samsung, Crucial, Sabrent is there a way to help you choose one that isnt a waste of money.

Click to expand...

Your CPU supports PCI-E 3.0. That means that you couldn't get a speed benefit from a PCI-E 4.0 drive.

On the other hand, a PCI-E 4.0 drive would typically be backwards compatible, and may cost no more. That probably shouldn't figure into your selection.

There are PCI-E 5.0 drives available. Avoid those. They are expensive, and wouldn't buy you any advantage.

There are other considerations that may not relate to the PCI-E version. Such as the presence of a DRAM buffer, TLC vs QLC, how hot the SSD runs, etc.

There was a recent thread here claiming that the Western Digital SN770 runs cool. (Sorry that it's fairly long.) It's a TLC drive with no DRAM buffer.

If you like to read spreadsheets, SSDs

bobkn said:

Makes sense.

If I was doing that, I'd want to mount the new M.2 drive in another slot to do the cloning. I hope that HP provided all the necessary hardware to permit that. (I'm think of the funk bracketry Dell uses on some of its models. I see no indication that HP does anything like that in the Z Books.)

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When I did my son's upgrade from 1TB to 4TB, i used one of these Acasis docks and cloned to the new NVMe in the dock. Worked great.

One possible consideration when deciding what Gen NVMe to get: The future. What I mean by that is simply that if you ever think that you will get a newer system that could benefit from a newer gen NVMe and you might want to move this NVMe to another system, then investing in a newer gen NVMe wouldn't necessarily be a waste of money.

As an example, I had an older HP laptop that had a small NVMe in it and I needed more capacity. It could only run at Gen 3 speeds but I got a gen 4. Glad I did because I just recently retired that machine and moved the NVMe to a system that can use gen 4 to its full potential.

bobkn said:

Your CPU supports PCI-E 3.0. That means that you couldn't get a speed benefit from a PCI-E 4.0 drive.

On the other hand, a PCI-E 4.0 drive would typically be backwards compatible, and may cost no more. That probably shouldn't figure into your selection.

There are PCI-E 5.0 drives available. Avoid those. They are expensive, and wouldn't buy you any advantage.

There are other considerations that may not relate to the PCI-E version. Such as the presence of a DRAM buffer, TLC vs QLC, how hot the SSD runs, etc.

There was a recent thread here claiming that the Western Digital SN770 runs cool. (Sorry that it's fairly long.) It's a TLC drive with no DRAM buffer.

If you like to read spreadsheets, SSDs

Click to expand...

Some great info on that spreadsheet, thank you

Bikeit said:

Some great info on that spreadsheet, thank you

Click to expand...

I had no hand in it. Good quick resource, though.

Guys thank you all for you help so far,
So i have narrowed my search down to 3 different M.2 drives the

Crucial T500 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD​

Rocket 4 Plus SSD 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 NVMe TLC SSD​

Rocket 4 Plus-G SSD 2TB M.2 2280 PCle NVMe​

Bikeit said:

Guys thank you all for you help so far,
So i have narrowed my search down to 3 different M.2 drives the

Crucial T500 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD​

Rocket 4 Plus SSD 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 NVMe TLC SSD​

Rocket 4 Plus-G SSD 2TB M.2 2280 PCle NVMe​

Click to expand...

FYI, your motherboard seems to support Gen3 NVMe interface. Any Gen4 instillation will only work at Gen3 performances, whatever their price.

Bikeit said:

I know the motherboard in the laptop is a few years old so im assuming the latest, fastest M.2 drive would be a waste of money, so as there is a hugh range to choose from Like Samsung, Crucial, Sabrent is there a way to help you choose one that isnt a waste of money.

Click to expand...

You can read NVMe SSD product reviews and benchmarks at TechPowerUp or at similar sites.

iko22 said:

FYI, your motherboard seems to support Gen3 NVMe interface. Any Gen4 instillation will only work at Gen3 performances, whatever their price.

You can read NVMe SSD product reviews and benchmarks at TechPowerUp or at similar sites.

TechPowerUp

www.techpowerup.com

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Iko22 thanks for the info, some great reading on TechPowerUp