Mini PCIe SSD anyone?

Has anyone tried to put one of these in their Envy yet?
Newegg.com - Intel 310 Series (Soda Creek) SSDMAEMC080G2C1 mSATA 80GB mSATA (mini PCIe form factor) MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - SSD

I noticed that we have a empty mini PCIe slot (presumably reserved for the mobile broadband card) right underneath the hardrive slot. If we can pop one of those tiny intel SSD under there for OS and apps and keep the original HDD for mass storage, we can get the best of both worlds.

Does anyone know if our BIOS can boot from that slot or has enough bandwidth to handle the drive?

 

I don't see why it wouldn't work, but it will be terribly slow. If you need more space just buy a portable drive with esata.

 

200mb/s read and 80 mb/s write is not slow, it's on par with other intel SSDs.
Having an external drive is kinda inconvenient sometimes, especially with eSata, when you need a data cable as well as a power cable.

But the question is, does Envy BIOS support mini PCIe boot?

 

I know that the SSD is capable of such speeds. However, the mini PCIe port on the computer might not be able to utilize the full speed. It should be able to boot.
If for some reason it doesn't you can always rma it.

 

Hmm that could give you 80GB for OS and Apps + 2x1TB in the HD and optical bay. Cool.

Bout wouldnt you have to give up wifi?

 

No, its an empty slot.

 

Has anyone tried this yet? I'm thinking about trying it out.

 

Thing is, I don't think the mPCI slot is a SATA connected slot but rather a USB connected one. So this device (or any mPCIe SATA device) wouldn't work in it.

 

If I had $200 I'd try it.

 

Regardless, I think it'd work, but just be bottlenecked by the USB 2.0 connection...no?

 

It wouldn't work because the HP BIOS whitelists devices. (although someone mentioned that somebody can crack it... mydigitallife BIOS cracking forums aren't much help)

Quote Wikipedia:
Electrical interface

PCI Express Mini Card edge connector provide multiple connections and buses:

PCIe×1
USB 2.0
SMBus
GPS
Wires to diagnostics LEDs for wireless network (i.e., WiFi) status on computer's chassis
SIM card for GSM and WCDMA applications
Future extension for another PCIe lane
1.5 and 3.3 volt power

If the SSD isn't designed for netbooks (some of which use a mPCIe connector, but the connector is really a rearranged SATA), it should work fine as long as someone manages to crack the BIOS and disable the whitelist.

 

This only applies if you want to boot from it, correct? Or even if you just want to use it as storage? (I realize that's impractical, just wondering though).

 

Guaranteed not to work regardless of BIOS whitelist removal since the Intel drive is mSATA which uses pins 5 and 7 for SATA communication.

Envy14 has a standard mPCIe slot.

 

Yeah, that's what I was worried about.

As long as the drive isn't marketed for netbooks or has "PATA" or "SATA," it should be a true mPCIe SSD. (Although I'm not sure if many exist)

This applies if you want to even use it at all.

 

Surprised no one over on MDL was able to knock out the whitelist. They've been pretty good with that sort of thing. Two of my other notebooks are non-whitelist thanks to them (and Nando4 from here).

 

Thanks for the info guys, glad to know (sort of) that my dream is crushed.

 

Is this back on the table at all given the new advanced options in bios? (using the F10 + A at boot?)

 

No, the whitelist isn't part of the advanced options as far as I remember.

 

So SuperTalent has released True mini PCIe SSDs
SuperTalent Introduces Fastest & Smallest Gen 2 SSD

They don't cost too much.
https://superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=SR32C7MME&title=Super-Talent-32GB-CoreStore-MV-Netbook-Solid-State-Drive-MLC

So the question is: Does the White list apply or will it just work?
(in my empty Envy 14 WWAN slot under HD)

 

It will still apply AFAIK. You could always try it out if they allow open box returns