How to upgrade a laptop SSD?
January 29, 2015 5:48 AM Subscribe
A few weeks ago I bought a Lenovo Flex 2-14 laptop. I seem to have mostly conquered the issues catalogued in this question, which all stemmed from Lenovo's bizarre decision to pre-load the thing with Malware. After a total reinstall from scratch (and a lost weekend - thanks Lenovo), I'm now mostly happy with the machine, save for one crucial issue - the supplied SSD is far too small.
The laptop shipped with a 25GB SSD and 450GB (or so) HD. The latter is perfectly adequate but it now transpires the former is not fit for purpose. This is my first experience of a laptop with a solid state drive, so I didn't think to check, but after installing Windows 8.1, a couple of browsers and Microsoft Office I'm regularly down to around 100mb of free space, which can't be healthy. Whenever I can, of course, I put data and programs on the HD, but Office apparently has to live on the same drive as the OS. So I'd like to upgrade. But how? Is there a way of buying a new compatible SSD, wiring it up via USB or something to clone the existing SSD and then physically swap them over? As ever, tips and tricks welcomed.
The laptop shipped with a 25GB SSD and 450GB (or so) HD. The latter is perfectly adequate but it now transpires the former is not fit for purpose. This is my first experience of a laptop with a solid state drive, so I didn't think to check, but after installing Windows 8.1, a couple of browsers and Microsoft Office I'm regularly down to around 100mb of free space, which can't be healthy. Whenever I can, of course, I put data and programs on the HD, but Office apparently has to live on the same drive as the OS. So I'd like to upgrade. But how? Is there a way of buying a new compatible SSD, wiring it up via USB or something to clone the existing SSD and then physically swap them over? As ever, tips and tricks welcomed.
I'd start by looking at the hardware maintenance manual (on the manuals tab) for your laptop,
Lenovo Flex 2-14 support . Which i think is that link, but i don't see instructions on replacing the SSD. I do for the HDD, which concerns me that it might be built into the system board or something unchangeable like that. Hopefully i'm just looking at the wrong model page though.
posted by TheAdamist at 6:14 AM on January 29, 2015
Lenovo Flex 2-14 support . Which i think is that link, but i don't see instructions on replacing the SSD. I do for the HDD, which concerns me that it might be built into the system board or something unchangeable like that. Hopefully i'm just looking at the wrong model page though.
posted by TheAdamist at 6:14 AM on January 29, 2015
FWIW, the small SSD/larger hard drive setup is designed to install everything onto the hard drive and then use the SSD as a partial mirror, duplicating the things you use most often for a big speed performance. Lenovo uses a program called ExpressCache for this at least some of the time.
posted by Candleman at 8:30 AM on January 29, 2015
posted by Candleman at 8:30 AM on January 29, 2015
Best answer: The Flex 2-14 is usually sold with a hybrid SSD/HDD, which is a single 2.5" SATA HDD with a small amount of RAM for caching, but not storage. I can't find any documentation indicating that there is a model with both a physical SSD and a physical HDD. We may need the specific part number of your laptop to confirm, but I think it's unlikely you have both an SSD and an HDD, and there's just one HDD drive with a small amount of built-in SSD caching and is just partitioned with both a 25GB and 450GB partition, where *both* partitions use the HDD.
If that's the case, why is the drive partitioned with a 25GB partition? I don't know, that's a pretty dumb configuration unless it's not the Windows partition or a data partition and is instead some sort of recovery partition - but that doesn't look to be the case. Here's a review that indicates their review laptop was partitioned in a similar way, and questions Lenovo's decision to do so.
If my suspicions are correct, the answer here is most likely to buy a 2.5" SATA SSD and a USB to 2.5" SATA adapter, partition the new SSD with one big partition, and then use one of the suggestions in this thread or this article to migrate Windows to the SSD. You can then use TheAdamist's link to the repair manual to replace the HDD with the new SSD. (You have to be careful what SSD you buy, however - there appear to be compatibility issues with the laptop and Crucial-brand drives.)
Again, however, you should probably provide the part number in case I'm way wrong, and you have some uncommon version that actually has two drives.
posted by eschatfische at 8:45 AM on January 29, 2015
If that's the case, why is the drive partitioned with a 25GB partition? I don't know, that's a pretty dumb configuration unless it's not the Windows partition or a data partition and is instead some sort of recovery partition - but that doesn't look to be the case. Here's a review that indicates their review laptop was partitioned in a similar way, and questions Lenovo's decision to do so.
If my suspicions are correct, the answer here is most likely to buy a 2.5" SATA SSD and a USB to 2.5" SATA adapter, partition the new SSD with one big partition, and then use one of the suggestions in this thread or this article to migrate Windows to the SSD. You can then use TheAdamist's link to the repair manual to replace the HDD with the new SSD. (You have to be careful what SSD you buy, however - there appear to be compatibility issues with the laptop and Crucial-brand drives.)
Again, however, you should probably provide the part number in case I'm way wrong, and you have some uncommon version that actually has two drives.
posted by eschatfische at 8:45 AM on January 29, 2015
Response by poster: Well, this is a bit embarrassing as it looks like escatfische is totally correct, and what I'm looking at is a partitioned 500GB HDD with an 8GB cache. The partitioning does seem completely bizarre. I've used a program called Partition Wizard to eke a bit more space from some unallocated partition (can you tell I don't really know what I'm doing?), which seems to have bought a bit of headroom. Ideally, though I'd split the 500GB into two partitions of 150GB and 350GB and hopefully some experimenting with the PW software should allow me to do this.
posted by jonathanbell at 9:56 AM on January 29, 2015
posted by jonathanbell at 9:56 AM on January 29, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
To sum it up:
after you remove the keyboard, there are 3 screws you need to take out (under the keyboard), 1 of them is hidden under a sticker (I guess it's a warranty sticker).
After you do this, you take off the 9~ screws on the back panel and then you can remove it :)
I will add that in order to switch the HDD you also need to take out the battery, pulling off the connector is a little tricky, there's not much to hold on to so be careful.
Also reference this blog post which has the complete steps for teardown!!!
Its the screws that always are a pain in the arse. Make sure to be very careful.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 6:08 AM on January 29, 2015