Question Upgrade HD advice please

[YogiBear57]

Hi Guys...I'm well and truly out of my depth here - so go easy on me.
I have a Honor MagicBook Pro - AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, Huawei WXX9 PCB, 16GB RAM, WDC PC SN730 SDBPNTY-515G-1027 Hard Disk.
I don't do any gaming and would like to upgrade the Hard disk (preferably a WD) to a 1TB or 2TB if possible and would really value your thoughts.....

 

[mikeymikec]

One small niggle - that's not a hard disk. It's a Solid State Drive (SSD).

Are you asking how to upgrade the SSD or are you asking for buying advice about which SSD it ought to be replaced with?

If the former:
A typical tactic that works for me is to find a model number of your laptop, go onto YouTube and type it in along with say 'upgrade ssd' and you'll probably find a video of someone going through the whole procedure of opening the computer.

 

[Shmee]

Looks like it doesn't take a HDD, but rather a single NVMe drive in M.2 2280 format. Though it looks like that was just mentioned. You can check out this video here

Note that the laptop disassembly may vary slightly based on exact model.

I would grab a Samsung 980 Pro or WD SN850X for a good upgrade.

 

[YogiBear57]

Hi Mikey & Shmee….I’m still living in the 2010’s….an SSD it is…. The current one being a :-
WD SN730 NVMe SSD M.2 2280-S3-M 500GB.

I see that GEN4 are beint listed at the moment, but I’m not sure if my Huawei HLYL-WXX9-PCB Motherboard would support that and if not would I need to look for a GEN3 ?
At this point I’m stuck….so again, any advice would be welcome before I write out my list to Santa !
Thanks again

 

[Shmee]

So from what I can find the Ryzen 4600H supports PCIe gen 3, so yes you would be limited to those speeds, but PCIe is generally backwards compatible. Though good PCIe gen 4 SSDs will be bottlenecked, they still may be the better buy depending on price. Many PCIe gen 4 drives are relatively cheap these days up to 2TB, even for the higher end ones.

 

[mikeymikec]

@YogiBear57 What do you use the computer for?

I'd say the two main things to consider when buying a SSD are:

1 - Is it TLC or QLC - QLC is much cheaper in terms of capacity but it's also much slower than TLC.
2 - SSDs with DRAM cache and DRAM-less SSDs - the latter are found in budget SSDs but their performance tanks (as well as general system responsiveness) if you ask them to write a load of data. Most hardware has some form of on-board cache for good reason.

I personally generally rule out QLC and DRAM-less SSDs though I might consider a QLC SSD purely for storing lots of data in a system where silence is golden (SSDs are silent, hard drives all make some level of spinning platter noise) but write performance isn't that important. I'm not sure in what situation I would actually recommend a DRAM-less SSD.

I can make recommendations for specific models though I stick to one brand and I don't want to look like a shill.

 

[YogiBear57]

Thanks Shmee,
what would your personal choice be between these PCIe GEN4 and GEN3 SSD's (if any)

WD BLACK SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 Game Drive NVME PCI-E GEN4 up to 5150 MB/s Amazon £99.48


WD_BLUE SN570 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 NVMe up to 3500 MB/s read speed Amazon £94.00


WD Green SN350 2TB NVMe Internal SSD Solid State Drive - Gen3 PCIe, QLC, M.2 2280, Up to 3,200 MB/s Amazon £77.50

Also would there be any heat generation issues as they are being used in a laptop ?
Thanks once again for your advice

 

[Shmee]

Of those 3 options I would probably go with the WD Black SN770. I have heard pretty good reviews on them in general. I am unsure how good the other 2 are, but my guess is mid to lower tier, and the WD Green is probably a step down in performance from what is in there already.

 

[YogiBear57]

@YogiBear57 What do you use the computer for?

I'd say the two main things to consider when buying a SSD are:

1 - Is it TLC or QLC - QLC is much cheaper in terms of capacity but it's also much slower than TLC.
2 - SSDs with DRAM cache and DRAM-less SSDs - the latter are found in budget SSDs but their performance tanks (as well as general system responsiveness) if you ask them to write a load of data. Most hardware has some form of on-board cache for good reason.

I personally generally rule out QLC and DRAM-less SSDs though I might consider a QLC SSD purely for storing lots of data in a system where silence is golden (SSDs are silent, hard drives all make some level of spinning platter noise) but write performance isn't that important. I'm not sure in what situation I would actually recommend a DRAM-less SSD.

I can make recommendations for specific models though I stick to one brand and I don't want to look like a shill.

Thanks Mikey
I have been happy with the existing WDC PC SN730 SDBPNTY-515G-1027 500GB and my only reason for updating is to get the 2TB space. I really wanted to be sure that I was looking at the correct specifications for my laptop i.e. GEN3 or GEN4 and whether of not there would be any heat issues by upgrading.
I have been looking at the
WD BLACK SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 Game Drive NVME PCI-E GEN4 up to 5150 MB/s
which is currently just under £100 on Amazon ???
Thanks again

 

[In2Photos]

The WD SN770 would be fine.

Next thing you need to consider is how you plan to do the upgrade. Are you going to want to clone the existing drive to the new drive so you can use your existing Windows installation or do you plan to do a fresh install? If you plan to clone the drive you will need a USB to NVME adapter as well. You will also need software to do the cloning.

 

[YogiBear57]

The WD SN770 would be fine.

Next thing you need to consider is how you plan to do the upgrade. Are you going to want to clone the existing drive to the new drive so you can use your existing Windows installation or do you plan to do a fresh install? If you plan to clone the drive you will need a USB to NVME adapter as well. You will also need software to do the cloning.

Okay that's great...many thanks.
Just looking at DiskGenius on YouTube....any good do you think?

 

[In2Photos]

Okay that's great...many thanks.
Just looking at DiskGenius on YouTube....any good do you think?

I used Macruim Reflect a few times before when there was a free version, but sadly they no longer offer one. DiskGenius looks like it would do the trick, but I've never used it. I may give it a shot as I have 2 drives to clone for a friend.

 

[mikeymikec]

I've used EaseUS Todo Backup Free which has a system clone option which has worked a number of times for me in the past. In my experience some cloning programs work when others don't and vice versa; you tend to know that it's not going to work if it says that the operation didn't complete IME.

 

[Shmee]

I used Macruim Reflect a few times before when there was a free version, but sadly they no longer offer one. DiskGenius looks like it would do the trick, but I've never used it. I may give it a shot as I have 2 drives to clone for a friend.

I think Reflect still has a free version, it just looks like they are trying to stop supporting/updating it. Anyway that is what I still use.

 

[In2Photos]

I think Reflect still has a free version, it just looks like they are trying to stop supporting/updating it. Anyway that is what I still use.

Is this a version that you previously downloaded? I don't think I saw a free version on their site anymore, only a trial version. Which would work but they require you to register now for a download.

 

[Shmee]

I forget how recently I downloaded this version, but it was fairly recent. At the time it wasn't easy to find on the official website, but I found it somehow, though I don't remember if it was an official source or not.

 

[manly]

If you search for the Macrium Free edition, there are mainstream download sites that still host the file. I.e. CNET or MajorGeeks. Should be possible to compare the file hash to make sure you aren't getting a trojaned file.

I believe they ended support for Macrium Free a year ago, so it won't be updated any more going forward (they had promised one year of updates IIRC). But it works well for what it does, so I don't think that should matter.