mSATA upgrade question

Hi,

I'm trying to upgrade my HP Pavilion dv6t-7000's mSATA. From research, the original HP part is a Samsung 32GB 3.3V 1.5A SATA III 6gb/s.

So I have 2 questions.

1) How important is the amperage? Do I have to get a 1.5A? Or can I get one that is lower such as 1A or more commonly 0.65A? I'm asking b/c 1.5A is hard to find and also, the lower the A means less power consumption and less heat. So I rather get a lower amperage one if it is compatible.

2) Very general question, what is the maximum capacity I can upgrade to? I'm looking at 128 or 256 GB. Is that doable? Also, if my laptop couldn't handle the upgrade, will a mSATA to USB 3 converter solve the problem?

I'm trying to keep it in the Samsung family just to make it easier.

Thanks!

 

Generally speaking, if it fits, its compatible.

The capacity shouldnt be an issue that level, anything beyond 2TB for a boot drive may be problematic.

For the amperage I have actually never looked at that before to be honest. I have used my 1TB mSATA drive in my desktop, and 2 laptops with no issues. its a part of a standard so there should be acceptable ranges that manufacturers build into but Im sure others may chime in on that front.

 

Hi thanks for responding. Generally I agree with everything you've said and thought as much. I mean, it really is about the interface and if it matches, it should be ok. I guess I just had a couple of bad experiences with "used" mSATA I got off ebay that had me worried. I actually got the USB mSATA converter to verify one of them was indeed a piece of junk.

I'm hoping to get few more replies, if anyone out there reading, even if you agree, please respond.

Thanks everyone!

 

@Gake you can get a lower amperage drive, and most likely higher amperage too. This shouldn't bother you. Last I check mSATA drives topped out at 2TB; you shouldn't bother with capacity, any drive will work as long as it is SATA. 128GB is too small by modern standards unless you have more storage devices, and 256GB ain't much too - but if it's enough for you, go for it . Good luck.

 

Thanks, I seem to get the same reply from elsewhere. I guess I really did just have some bad luck with used ones. I'm using it for programs since I have a 7200 rpm 750GB hdd that seems to be fine for normal applications. Not even going to migrate the OS. I don't know why people say their Win 7 loads so slow on HDD, mine loads pretty fast.

Just curious if anyone knows more about amperage. Again, I assume newer ones are all lower especially for laptops to conserve power. But does that mean they're slower? Are higher amperage ones faster? Mostly they're all under 1A now, rarely find one that is 1.5A.

 

Read/write speeds are displayed on each one so you can verify that for each one you are interested in.

 

To answer your question about amperage... These things are designed to be compatible with standards. Older technologies tend to have higher power needs than newer refined technologies / chips / controllers.

As long as your complete unit is within specs for power demand and supply from the power adapter you shouldn't have any issues other than a potential gain/loss in the battery time.

To expand on the quoted info... why not combine things into a single 1TB Sata SSD for ~$100 to get everything sped up and less power draw than the spinner?

 

Thanks, I just got a 128GB 0.65A and it runs so nice, quiet and purrs like a kitten, not overheating.

I'm really just doing this for an intrigue. It's an 8 yr old laptop, I'm not looking to upgrade it or something b/c honestly it runs great. The 7200 RPM hdd seems to load everything lightening fast so I really don't know what most people on the internet are complaining about when it comes to HDD performance. Perhaps it has to do with eBoostr, but I'm quite happy with it.

I just realized it comes with a mSATA slot, so I wanted to use to use it b/c it is like buying a car but not using all the accessories. However, I'm not planning to replace the 7200 rpm HDD as I am quite happy with it.

Thanks for all your help guys.

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So actually I only ran it off the mSATA-USB 3.0 converter, didn't want to risk it in case something wrong with my mSATA port until I get to test it with a smaller cheap generic brand. Turns out, they both work.

The bottom line is?

1) HP making things more complicated than it is. It is a mSATA port and will work practically with any mSATA III 6gb/s transfer. It is really easy to use this as a 2nd drive instead of Intel's accelerated cache. On my system, by default it is not turned on as a cache. However, if your system has it on cache, just run Intel Rapid Storage (search in the menu bar) and turn off acceleration.

2) DO NOT BUY USED ones from eBay! This is where it screwed me up. Two of the ones I bought first were bad and I thought it was a "compatibility" issue. I finally bought a new one for testing, a generic China brand for $17, but new and it works. (Dogfish Tech - 32GB, 1A)

After the test, I ran the one that I wanted, Samsung 128GB open box (means it is new but sold without box), finally it worked and this one ran at 0.65A).

So a couple of notes:
1) A Lite-On 32GB, 1A (used) - BIOS didn't even detect it. Either it is a bad one or it is incompatible.

2) Samsung 32GB 1.5A (used) - Corrupted firmware, sold me an ewaste

3) Dogfish 32GB, 1A (new) - Worked like a charm. Generic brand but nice.

4) Samsung 128GB, 0.65A (open box) - Worked like a charm.

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A) Size can probably go bigger, but I only needed a 128GB. I would think 512GB would definitely work, but anything larger might depend on BIOS update.

B) The lower the amperage the better, because it draws less power and generate less heat. The 0.65A is so nice, it doesn't even heat up.

C) I should note that both mSATA I bought that worked, they were formatted MBA, NTFS, Primary partition. The Dogfish was completely new, came unallocated and I had to format this myself (via adapter). Not sure what would happen if you inserted this into the mSATA port without formatting. I would guess it simply treat it as an unformatted drive and let's you format it.

D) mSATA-USB 3.0 adapter is not as fast as the actual mSATA port, despite their claim it is 6gb/s. USB 3.0 is at most 5gb/s, however I did the crystalmark benchmark test and the mSATA port is approx 2x faster than the USB 3.0 port in direct read and that itself was about 2x faster than my 7200 rpm HDD. However, in writing and random read, the mSATA port is almost 10-20x faster than the USB 3.0.

Good luck!