Upgrade HDD to SSD

[Jeffrey Lapinski]

Hello All,
Quick question... I have a dual drive system, a 256 SSD and 1 TB HDD. I want to upgrade the SSD to a 2 TB but upon reviewing a lot of the information available it appears that I need to remove the entire motherboard to get the SSD slot. So, what I am wondering is can I simply upgrade the HDD that is easily accessible to a larger capacity 2.5 inch SSD instead of upgrading the M2? Is there any drawback to doing it this way?

 

[wizardfromoz]

Beyond my paygrade, Jeffrey (and Hi )

Hope someone else has answers

Good luck

Wizard

 

[Jeffrey Lapinski]

Hello! Thanks for chiming in and I hope that you are well! No worries, I actually think this will work but before I go tearing out the insides of my laptop I want to get some confirmation from those who likely know better! I have upgraded HDD -> SSD in the past on a different machine but never one that also has a M.2 SSD. Anyway, great to hear from you!

 

[oldrocker99]

SSDs are very light in weight, and I have run one just fine attached to the cable and not mounted at all. I wouldn't try this with a HDD, naturally.

 

[LinHappyMan]

SSDs are very light in weight, and I have run one just fine attached to the cable and not mounted at all. I wouldn't try this with a HDD, naturally.

Just make sure they are well in the airflow path or else they may get overly too hot. My easily get over ~110F and I believe SSDs usually clock out beyond the ~150F mark.

 

[Bayou Bengal]

Hello All,
Quick question... I have a dual drive system, a 256 SSD and 1 TB HDD. I want to upgrade the SSD to a 2 TB but upon reviewing a lot of the information available it appears that I need to remove the entire motherboard to get the SSD slot. So, what I am wondering is can I simply upgrade the HDD that is easily accessible to a larger capacity 2.5 inch SSD instead of upgrading the M2? Is there any drawback to doing it this way?

Hi Jeffery, Yes you can do this. I have done it on three different laptops from three different manufacturers, Gigabyte, Asus, and Dell. They all three work wonderfully, and there is no issues with overheating. I used prefer Samsung SSDs.

 

[mal-2]

One small issue can be the height of the drive. I fixed that usually with some paper to avoid mechanical force to the connector. But apart from that sata doesnt care if its an SSD or HDD