Upgrading an M2 SSD

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  1. Posts : 111
    Win 10 Pro
       #1

    Upgrading an M2 SSD


    My laptop has a Kingston 128GB M2 drive, also a 1T HDD

    I'm looking to upgrade the 128Gb drive as you can tell, it's starting to get full, thats with me directing most downloads, saving etc to my D drive.

    so all i need is a M2 converter to USB and use a disc clone program to copy my drive and install?
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  2. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #2

    You'd get the best advice if you supply the make and model of your laptop.

    M.2 drives may be SATA or PCI-E. PCI-E drives may be NVME or not. You'd want a compatible drive.

    You could use an external M.2 to USB adapter.

    Alternately, you could image the M.2, perhaps onto the 1TB HDD. You'd then swap the M.2 drive, boot the laptop from the USB restore drive from the imaging software, and restore the SSD image to the new drive. (You may have to resize the main partition using Windows Disk Management to use all of the space on the new drive.) That approach may take longer, but it has the bonus of saving an image of your current SSD. Just in case.
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  3. Posts : 16,782
    Windows 10 Home x64 Version 22H2 Build 19045.4170
       #3

    I agree with bobkn.

    When I bought a bigger M.2 card I
    - made a system image of my existing disk [card] including all its partitions & tested the boot USB for my imaging application so I could get back to square one if it all went wrong
    - made a Windows 10 installation USB
    - removed my old M.2 and fitted the new one
    - booted from the Windows 10 installation USB and installed Windows on the new disk [card] - this was just to get all the necessary partitions in place
    - booted from my imaging application's boot USB and restored only the C:\ drive image to the new C:\ drive.
    - opened up Disk mgmt / MiniTool Partition Wizard to expand the C:\ drive to fill all the available space.

    I used system imaging rather than cloning because that avoided any need to use an external M.2-USB enclosure and because I have always been nervous about cloning.

    If you are filling up your existing M.2 card despite using a D:\ drive for your data then I assume you are a gamer because I heard that games can take up huge amounts of storage space.

    Denis
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  4. Posts : 7,724
    3-Win-7Prox64 3-Win10Prox64 3-LinuxMint20.2
       #4

    bjproc said:
    My laptop has a Kingston 128GB M2 drive, also a 1T HDD

    I'm looking to upgrade the 128Gb drive as you can tell, it's starting to get full, thats with me directing most downloads, saving etc to my D drive.

    so all i need is a M2 converter to USB and use a disc clone program to copy my drive and install?
    Hi,
    I tend to create system images and restore them to different ssd's rather than cloning
    You should already have system images for backup so this is nothing new and system images are more efficient and reliable.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 111
    Win 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #5

    hi, sorry for the late reply, got busy gutting my house out.

    My laptop is an MSI GV72 8RD

    Just now, I'm making any installation go into a D drive folder
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  6. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #6

    bjproc said:
    hi, sorry for the late reply, got busy gutting my house out.

    My laptop is an MSI GV72 8RD

    Just now, I'm making any installation go into a D drive folder
    The M.2 slot accepts SATA drives and PCI-E/NVME drives. Specification for GV72 8RD | Laptops - The best gaming laptop provider | MSI Global You'd want the NVME ones (which are the commonest ones at the moment, anyway).

    It confirmed by Crucial: Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | msi (micro star) | msi (micro star) notebooks | GV72 8RD | Crucial.com The ones they offer are the 2280 format (22 mm wide, 80 mm long). (I haven't checked what they offer in the UK.)

    I'd expect any 2280 NVME M.2 drive to be compatible. There are additional choices (TLC vs QLC, for example). Multi-level cell - Wikipedia You probably don't want a PCI-E 4.0 drive; it'd cost more, but it wouldn't get you any more performance over a PCI-E 3.0 drive in a current Intel laptop.
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  7. Posts : 111
    Win 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #7

    bobkn said:
    The M.2 slot accepts SATA drives and PCI-E/NVME drives. Specification for GV72 8RD | Laptops - The best gaming laptop provider | MSI Global You'd want the NVME ones (which are the commonest ones at the moment, anyway).

    It confirmed by Crucial: Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | msi (micro star) | msi (micro star) notebooks | GV72 8RD | Crucial.com The ones they offer are the 2280 format (22 mm wide, 80 mm long). (I haven't checked what they offer in the UK.)

    I'd expect any 2280 NVME M.2 drive to be compatible. There are additional choices (TLC vs QLC, for example). Multi-level cell - Wikipedia You probably don't want a PCI-E 4.0 drive; it'd cost more, but it wouldn't get you any more performance over a PCI-E 3.0 drive in a current Intel laptop.
    thank you for the information, certainly will come in handy when i get to replace it.
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  8. Posts : 111
    Win 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #8

    ok, finally got an 500GB m2 SSD, used Aomie to copy my other M2 SSD, but as it larger, it has an extra partition on the end of the drive

    is there a way to merge this end partition with the new C drive?

    Upgrading an M2 SSD-ssd.jpg

    - - - Updated - - -

    i have a full version of partition wizard if that helps
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #9

    bjproc said:
    ok, finally got an 500GB m2 SSD, used Aomie to copy my other M2 SSD, but as it larger, it has an extra partition on the end of the drive

    is there a way to merge this end partition with the new C drive?

    Upgrading an M2 SSD-ssd.jpg

    - - - Updated - - -

    i have a full version of partition wizard if that helps
    I'm confused by the drive letters shown.

    However, in Disk Management, you can delete F, making it unallocated space. You can then expand E to use that space.

    Is that what you want?

    If you wish to change the space of partitions that aren't contiguous, that's beyond my experience.
      My Computers


  10. Posts : 111
    Win 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #10

    thanks,

    after playing about with it, i managed to merge and resize the partitions to what i was requiring, so E drive (soon to be C) is the largest partition

    The new drive is still in the caddy use to clone it, thats why the drive letters are different
      My Computer


 

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