[SOLVED] M.2 Slot SATA or NVMe compatible in a Coda Spirit?

HermannUK

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Jul 30, 2012
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I have a cheap and low powered laptop, a CODA Spirit, it ships with eMMC memory for the OS but it does have an m.2 slot available to add an SSD.

I'd like to upgrade to an SSD but not sure which type to get beyond it has an M.2 2280 slot.

Looking at drives there seem to be two choices a SATA drive or a much faster NVMe drive.

But which one to buy? Will the NVMe work and act as a boot drive?

Looking at the bios there is an option on the advanced tab 'NVMe Configuration' but what little specs are published suggest it's a SATA slot.

It is possible the bios would mention NVMe without the motherboard actually supporting it?

Would an NVMe drive be 'backwards compatible' with a SATA slot and still work but at slower speeds?

Or does anyone know what works in these laptops.
 
Solution
An NVMe drive is not backwards compatible with a SATA drive or port.

You'd have to actually determine which it is. Any links to this device?

Are you sure that M.2 port is for an actual storage device?
M.2 can also be for many other things...WiF, for instance.
It is not necessarily drives only.

If it currently has an eMMC drive, booting from something in the M.2 port is unlikely, even if it is a stoge device location.

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
An NVMe drive is not backwards compatible with a SATA drive or port.

You'd have to actually determine which it is. Any links to this device?

Are you sure that M.2 port is for an actual storage device?
M.2 can also be for many other things...WiF, for instance.
It is not necessarily drives only.

If it currently has an eMMC drive, booting from something in the M.2 port is unlikely, even if it is a stoge device location.
 
Solution

HermannUK

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There is not much at all in way of specs or support but here is a link to the manufacturer, it's also sold in the Microsoft Store but even less detail in there.

https://codacomputers.com/spirit-13-3-laptop-fhd-intel-celeron-n3350/

It's definitely for a 2280 SSD storage, up to 1TB, just need to decide which to buy.

I've read of others switching the OS to an SSD in them and also people switching to Linux booting from an SSD in the M.2 slot so reasonably confident the slot can be used for a boot SSD.

Just a that question of which is supported, sadly the other threads don't give that detail and having seen the NVMe reference in the Bios made me wonder if it was in fact NVMe compatible but have no idea if the bios would reference a feature the motherboard doesn't actually support.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
There is not much at all in way of specs or support but here is a link to the manufacturer, it's also sold in the Microsoft Store but even less detail in there.

https://codacomputers.com/spirit-13-3-laptop-fhd-intel-celeron-n3350/

It's definitely for a 2280 SSD storage, up to 1TB, just need to decide which to buy.

I've read of others switching the OS to an SSD in them and also people switching to Linux booting from an SSD in the M.2 slot so reasonably confident the slot can be used for a boot SSD.

Just a that question of which is supported, sadly the other threads don't give that detail and having seen the NVMe reference in the Bios made me wonder if it was in fact NVMe compatible but have no idea if the bios would reference a feature the motherboard doesn't actually support.
I would see if you can find out which specific drives others have used in there, and go with that type.
SATA or NVMe.

I would not be surprised at a line in the BIOS that does not actually exist on the motherboard.
 
The maker is quite shy on providing many details other than supporting 'another SSD up to 1 TB in size'; I could find no mention of M.2 SATA or NVME in the specs, but, certainly the 4 GB of RAM is going to 'hurt'. How assorted makers could ever think using a 32 GB storage device for Windows 10 was going to be a good idea is another topic.
 

HermannUK

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Jul 30, 2012
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The maker is quite shy on providing many details other than supporting 'another SSD up to 1 TB in size'; I could find no mention of M.2 SATA or NVME in the specs, but, certainly the 4 GB of RAM is going to 'hurt'. How assorted makers could ever think using a 32 GB storage device for Windows 10 was going to be a good idea is another topic.
It is low spec not only is there only 4Gb soldered RAM but the processor is a Celeron N3350 and as you say 32GB eMMC.

It is just useable for basic tasks, browsing, emails, text documents and plays media fine, streams films well, speaker is poor though and it seems to introduce some lag on Zoom meetings!

I knew its limitations before I bought it but at £100 new it does what I needed it to and will hopefully have some fun messing about with some linux on it if I can sort out an SSD.

However I was surprised with the quality of the screen, it's a decent IPS screen and the chassis/case is decent too with a fair bit of metal involved, decent keyboard and multi gesture trackpad etc.

More RAM and a bit better processor and it would be a great little thing, sadly thats not possible.

Did try a message to CODA support and they have responded, they say SATA drive and provided some instructions on installing windows on the SSD so hopefully that is correct and at least the SATA ones are the less expensive drives. Sounds like the slot should be bootable too.

A reread of another thread on installing Linux on them mentioned using the cheap WD Green drives, around £22, so pretty sure they would be the SATA ones they got to work.