Question Hacking an M.2 SSD into an old laptop

[flamery]

Hi all, got an old HP Probook 6570b which although old still use it a bit and want to give it a speed boost, I also have a spare M.2 SSD (CV1-8B256-HP) - which has no M.2 connector, not surprisingly.

My plan of attack is to remove the optical drive, buy a very cheap adapter on aliexpress (ie: https://ibb.co/cyvwFJW ) mount the SSD into the adapter, connect the adapter to the laptops sata ports in the drive bay with some short sata cables then very precisely jam it all into the drive bay and stick the faceplate over the hole (this laptop is used as remote terminal so its never moved around, no need for securing anything.

I see no reason why the M.2 Sata drive wont work with the adapter into a normal serial port (will probably lose a bit of speed but its currently a mechanical hdd now, so yeah..) but the concern I have is power, the power connector in the drive bay is a slimline ATA which only provides 5v as opposed to normal sata power which has 12, 5 and 3.3. I cannot figure out what voltage my SSD is, is it 3.3 or 5? I can get a gender bender cable to plug it in, no issue there, but am I going to fry this thing? Any other issues I may be missing?

Also I am aware they do sell M.2 optical drive caddies that do all this for me, but I want to do it -cheap-, so it must be possible to achieve, but perhaps the caddies also step down the voltage aswell? (caddy with slimline sata power: http://shorturl.at/diFL2 )

thanks in advance!

 

[CountMike]

Hi all, got an old HP Probook 6570b which although old still use it a bit and want to give it a speed boost, I also have a spare M.2 SSD (CV1-8B256-HP) - which has no M.2 connector, not surprisingly.

My plan of attack is to remove the optical drive, buy a very cheap adapter on aliexpress (ie: https://ibb.co/cyvwFJW ) mount the SSD into the adapter, connect the adapter to the laptops sata ports in the drive bay with some short sata cables then very precisely jam it all into the drive bay and stick the faceplate over the hole (this laptop is used as remote terminal so its never moved around, no need for securing anything.

I see no reason why the M.2 Sata drive wont work with the adapter into a normal serial port (will probably lose a bit of speed but its currently a mechanical hdd now, so yeah..) but the concern I have is power, the power connector in the drive bay is a slimline ATA which only provides 5v as opposed to normal sata power which has 12, 5 and 3.3. I cannot figure out what voltage my SSD is, is it 3.3 or 5? I can get a gender bender cable to plug it in, no issue there, but am I going to fry this thing? Any other issues I may be missing?

Also I am aware they do sell M.2 optical drive caddies that do all this for me, but I want to do it -cheap-, so it must be possible to achieve, but perhaps the caddies also step down the voltage aswell? (caddy with slimline sata power: http://shorturl.at/diFL2 )

thanks in advance!

You still wouldn't get M.2 NVMe speeds so you might as well use 2.5" SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

Waste of time and money.
No matter what adapters you put in there, the basic interface is still SATA. You can't force firehose performance (NVMe) through a garden hose (SATA).

At most, just replace the existing spinning HDD with a regular 2.5" SATA SSD.

 

[flamery]

I completely agree with both your comments, but what I am saying is, I have this M.2 sata drive spare, it cost me nothing and I have no other use for it, so using a regular sata drive instead would mean I need to go out and buy one. With an M.2 to sata adaptor and sata cables (that I already have lying around) I can get this drive into my laptop at a cost of about $3, which I am sure you will all agree will give me a nice improvement over the current spindle.

 

[USAFRet]

I completely agree with both your comments, but what I am saying is, I have this M.2 sata drive spare, it cost me nothing and I have no other use for it, so using a regular sata drive instead would mean I need to go out and buy one. With an M.2 to sata adaptor and sata cables (that I already have lying around) I can get this drive into my laptop at a cost of about $3, which I am sure you will all agree will give me a nice improvement over the current spindle.

Try it.
Let us know how it works out.

 

[flamery]

Try it.
Let us know how it works out.

I am going to. I am asking the forum if anyone knows whether M.2 is 3.3v or 5v. If its 5v i'll plug it into the slimline sata, if its 3.3v ill need to find another power source one the board to use.

 

[USAFRet]

All 3.3v
https://pinoutguide.com/HD/M.2_NGFF_connector_pinout.shtml

 

[Zizo007]

Just be careful when buying from AliExpress as they won't give full speed, not even SATA 6 speeds.
I once bought an external SATA USB 3.0 5Gbps case and it wouldn't go over 120Mbps with a 500mbps SSD. They use cheaper and slower controllers. Get a known brand that is rated and tested at SATA 6 speeds.

 

[flamery]

Got the drive in, incase anyone else is wondering if its worth it, the answer is yes. No issues with compatibility, booted up and it was visible in disk manager, allocated a drive letter and it was good to go.

In terms of speed:

Existing hard-drive (Seagate st500lm021 ):

Disk Random 16.0 Read 1.47 MB/s 3.9
Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 111.90 MB/s 6.8
Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 121.53 MB/s 6.9
Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 6.334 ms 5.6
Latency: 95th Percentile 88.369 ms 1.9
Latency: Maximum 261.864 ms 7.1
Average Read Time with Random Writes 17.318 ms 2.9
Total Run Time 00:01:01.88

M2 connected in the optical drive bay:

Disk Random 16.0 Read 481.79 MB/s 8.3
Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 529.06 MB/s 8.1
Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 361.70 MB/s 7.9
Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.250 ms 8.5
Latency: 95th Percentile 0.923 ms 8.4
Latency: Maximum 2.807 ms 8.7
Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.254 ms 8.8
Total Run Time 00:00:15.63