[SOLVED] ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733QS: m.2 ssd upgrade

[Zastai]

Hi,

I recently purchased a ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733QS laptop.
This comes with 1TB of storage and 2 m.2. slots.
Detailed information is scarce; it runs an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, so at least it's fairly clear that they'll be PCIe 3.0, not 4.0.

I would like to upgrade to 2 Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB drives (don't think going 980 makes sense when it's not PCIe 4.0).

However, like a good boy I asked ASUS whether that's a compatible drive and they came back with "sorry, only drives up to 1TB" with no further details on where that limitation comes from.
On the other hand, xoticpc offer customized versions of the latop with drives up to 8TB, suggesting that they are supported by the hardware.
So I'm a bit confused now, and don't want to buy these drives only hoping they work.

So, my questions:

1. does that 1TB limitation make sense, or did I get a not-too capable frontline support person who got things confused?
2. for installing new drives, are screwdriver kits using magnetically-held tips ok, or should they be absolutely avoided for m.2? any suggested sets?
3. on the assumption that there is currently one slot free, how trivial is it to upgrade the system drive? is it as simple as cloning the drive (and what software is used for that?) and then moving the new card to the old card's slot?
4. otherwise, if both slots are in use, I assume I would have to create a backup to and external drive, put in the two new drives, install windows and then restore from backup?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You could put in a large NVMe drive regardless of what the support team say, the issue I see you face down the road is that the drives themselves will thermal throttle. If anything, get one small capacity SSD for the OS, that can be the Samsung 970 Evo Plus, while the other SSD can be a larger drive, but in a different make/model, one that doesn't run as fast as the Samsung and one that doesn't dump that much heat.

1| You can't blame them, they're trying to support you and perhaps they're trying to prevent user error and a forced RMA incident.

2| A screw driver is need, magnetically or not is up to you...or whichever is easier to access. Just make sure it's not a very strong magnet, just strong enough to prevent the screw from falling into a nook.

3| Regardless of how many slots you have, when you drop in a new SSD, reinstall the OS. Fabricate your bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools. Make sure your laptop BIOS is updated to the latest version.

4| it should be one slot empty, per the manual(s);
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/GamingNB/G713IM/E17962_G713_G733_Service_Manual_EM_WEB.pdf

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/GamingNB/G713QR/E18128_G713_G733_Upgrade_Guide_V2_WEB.pdf

unless you have a RAID 0 array with two 512GB SSD's.

 

[Zastai]

Thanks - will just hold off on upgrading then. Adding an extra drive later will hopefully not be too big a deal.