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Posted 28th Dec 2022
I have a Acer aspire 5 a515-45

has a stock WD Hard disk drive:
256Gb PCIe Gen3 8 Gb/s up to 4 lanes, NVMe

with support for drive:
1 TB / 2 TB 2.5-inch 5400 RPM
Solid state drive:
128 GB / 256 GB / 512 GB / 1 TB, PCIe Gen3 8 Gb/s up to 4 lanes, NVMe

is there an adapter someone could recommend ie SATA3 2.5" to PCIe drive caddy or alike

then I'll be able to add a bigger Nvme drive

just looking for options to add more space, don't really want a fresh installation as to looking for a way to move the os drive to a sata to PCIe to save time

many thanks for any help
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  1. carphead's avatar
    With a lot of low to mid range mass market laptops from a few years back you have capacity inside to add a secondary ssd / HDD.

    Your laptop is a good example.



    The above shows you how to take the laptop apart.

    ebay.co.uk/itm…OPY

    Is the data adapter you need. But I would check first if the laptop has a mounting bracket inside for a hard drive.
  2. Uridium's avatar
    Look on Amazon, loads of nvme caddies on there
    jd4's avatar
    Author
    Yeah, I've had a look but I'm unsure :/ what will work, never used one before any pics or links appreciate
  3. EndlessWaves's avatar
    Can you give an overview about what you want and what you're concerned about? Tech thoughts from half way through researching can be a little tricky to decipher.

    I'm not sure whether you're trying to connect an SATA drive to the M.2 socket or a PCI-E drive to the SATA connector but either way it's likely a waste of time. It won't be any faster and higher capacity drives are available for both.

    Generally when something quotes multiple drive sizes like that it's listing the configurations which the laptop came with and not the maximum capacity it's capable of handling. (edited)
  4. jd4's avatar
    Author
    Would a sata3 2.5" SSD drive be faster then my current PCIe gen3 Nvme drive
    EndlessWaves's avatar
    Depends on the individual drives. SATA/AHCI and PCI-E/NVMe are only the connection methods and don't themselves determine how fast a drive is - much like your internet connection doesn't determine how fast your computer is.

    PCI-E is the newer and faster connection method, but it's entirely possible your current drive is slower than a good SATA drive.

    However, if you wanted the fastest replacement drive then that'd be a PCI-E one.
  5. jd4's avatar
    Author
    Thank you everyone 🙏 sounds to me I'll keep my os on the PCIe/Nvme (256gb) and get a separate sata3 2.5 for my games and big files

    What's your thorts on this:
    Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - Up to 560MB/s - CT500MX500SSD1

    Going for £40 I believe that's good
    Using for ( mid range) games and large films (edited)
    maddogb's avatar
    With current pci-e drive prices, it would likely be a whole lot easier to simply replace the existing 256 with a 1tb drive..
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