HM175 Chipset support SSD Samsung 960 PRO M.2 PCIe 3.0?

AskingTheRealQs

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May 7, 2017
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Hello, 😉

I'm looking forward to buy a new laptop Asus Zenbook UX430UQ i7-7500U.

As far as I could figure things out, I think (not certain though) that it has HM175 Chipset included. Also there is a M.2 M-Key type interface for SSDs on the motherboard (See the pic below).

Can I upgrade the OEM SSD to a Samsung 960 PRO SSD M.2 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe?

I mean, will the motherboard (south bridge, to which the SSD is connected to) support PCIe 3.0 speeds or only PCIe 2.0 speeds?

Thanks!

https://ibb.co/iUcHWQ

internals_ssd1.jpg
 
Solution
That will be somewhat subjective. At PCIe 2.0 bandwidth the sequential read/write performance will be lower but I doubt you'll feel it in real world, especially being a single drive system. You won't lose any IOPS with the PCIe 2.0 interface; I know what from experience. Its the IOPS that really matter in real world anyway.
Its an m.2 connector but looks like that laptop is only offered with a SATA SSD option, not PCIe.

In general, if a laptop is offered out of the factory with either a SATA or a PCIe SSD, you can get away with buying it with the cheapest SATA SSD available then buying an aftermarket PCIe SSD like a 960 pro. That said, cloning from one drive to the other can be very difficult for multiple reasons. The NVMe SSD you get is also not guaranteed to work as the machine's BIOS may just not like it. I did it on an X1 carbon successfully but cloning just wouldn't work connecting both drives in my desktop. I ended up pulling the Windows key out of the factory install using belarc advisor and just installing Win 10 from scratch to the NVMe SSD using installation media I had laying around, then installing all the drivers from Lenovo.com. The X1 carbon is offered with both SATA and PCIe SSD options though.
 


Thanks for your sharing :)

Well I only know that some other users had bought older versions of the latpop above (In instance: UX310UQ, or UX410UQ) and did the same - by upgrading their M.2 SSDs from (SATA3) to (NVMe) models. And they pretty much got better perfomance rates, but it appeared that the only problem (with this Zenbook Series of laptops) is that at least the old versions' Motherboard\Chipset south bridge only supported PCIe 2.0 Gen, not 3.0.

Said that, I'm willing to try to do so although you had a good point.

You can read more here: (and even see my messages too)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/asus-zenbook-ux310uq-does-the-m-2-slot-support-pcie-ssd.796362/

And Also you can read more here of the same issue regarding other brands: (This is written in Chiense, but I used Google Translate to understand what they wrote down there)
https://m.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=490&t=5018718&p=2
 


Haha. Yeah, a NVMe SSD with a PCIe 2.0 support will be almost 4 times faster than the fastest SATA3 SSD. (And at least 3 times more faster).

But now I wonder whether the new UX430UQ would support 960 PRO with a PCIe 3.0. I mean, will it be 6 times faster than the fastest SATA3 SSD? 😀 (Or just at least 4 times faster)
 
That will be somewhat subjective. At PCIe 2.0 bandwidth the sequential read/write performance will be lower but I doubt you'll feel it in real world, especially being a single drive system. You won't lose any IOPS with the PCIe 2.0 interface; I know what from experience. Its the IOPS that really matter in real world anyway.
 
Solution