[SOLVED] SSD compatibility question (Intel HM370 mobo)

[Disti15]

tl;dr
Will a Crucial CT500P1SSD8 SSD (500 GB, 3D NAND, NVMe, PCIe, M.2) work on my laptop (Asus N580GD-E4189T)? Do you recommend other SSD alternatives?

The problem
I wanted to add a SSD to my new Laptop (Asus Vivobook Pro 15, N580GD-E4189T) which has an Intel HM370 chipset.

I've had some problems previously with a Crucial MX500 M.2 SSD, basically the motherboard had trouble detecting it (you can see more in this other thread)

I was thinking about trying again with a Crucial CT500P1SSD8, which uses PCIe instead of SATA. Will it work? Do you recommend other alternatives?

 

[tennis2]

There's definitely a 2280 M.2 slot. I can't confirm that it's NVMe and not SATA, but the odds are much greater that it supports NVMe.

As far as the Curcial P1 is concerned. Do you know that's a QLC drive? It wouldn't be my first (or even 5th) choice. Why did you select it?

What country are you in?

 

[Disti15]

Thanks for the answer. I selected Crucial P1 because of its low price, but reading more I see that it's not a good option. What are your first choices for a good NVMe SSD? I'm in Spain by the way.

 

[tennis2]

My go-to's are Adata SX8200 Pro and HP EX920 / EX950. In the US, they're very price competitive and offer great performance. I've seen HP EX920 for the same price as a Crucial P1.

Tom's ran an article a month or so ago recommending the SX8200 Pro as their price/performance leader also (if you don't want to take my word for it)

 

[popatim]

According to This page you may have an Optane module in the M2 slot.

This confirms youhave an NVME M2 slot but if the optane module is in tehre you will need to sever it's link to the HDD first, they are in a raid mode caching pair in irst, and verify you can still boot up once you undo the caching.

I would suggest making an image or back up of this drive before you begin unless you planned on installing windows anyways.

 

[Disti15]

Thank you very much for your answers! I had problems with the Optane module before. To summarise, I bought an MX500 SSD for my laptop earlier, I tried switching configurations (IRST to AHCI mode, etc.) but BIOS didn't detect it and now my laptop only has an HDD drive without the Optane M2 drive.

What are the steps to switch from the Optane drive to an SSD drive? I changed various configuration settings but it seems I'm missing a step. I switched to AHCI controller, switched to default Microsoft SATA drivers, etc. (if you want more info I made another post earlier, too)

 

[popatim]

Basically in iRST, you disable caching, reboot and doublecheck that it stayed off.

Whats the purpose of the NVME drive?

If it's just going to be extra fast storage for games,programs, etc then you just need to shutdown and install it.
Reboot and configure it in iRST or diskmanagement as needed.

If you wanted to boot from it, then clone the HDD to the NVME after its been installed, shut down, unplud the HDD and ensure you can boot of the NVME.