Blade M.2 SSD Performance Review / Swapping Instructions / Cloning

NOTE: THIS IS THE 2014 BLADE. I understand the 2015 is very similar for swapping.

Completely redoing this thread as I have a third drive in the mix now (Micron M600 thanks @kingcow ) and I switched to Macrium Reflect v6 paid(thanks @wawawa). I'm going to normalize on Anvil's Storage Utilities for the benchmarks as well since it has a nice display with both bandwidth and IOPS as well as a bunch of system info. I ran each of these benchmarks multiple times and they were all within tiny error margins apart for multiple runs, so I just took the best of the three, not that it mattered. Also turned off my virus protection and made sure indexing wasn't running.

Samsung PM 851 512GB M.2 (came with 2014 Blade):



Transcend MT800 512GB M.2


Micron M600 512GB M.2


From the above, I would say the best of the three drives is definitely the M600. The Transcend MT800 isn't bad for the $203 (Wow. $225 already, prices change fast) it currently costs on Amazon for 512GB, but I would only get it if you don't have a 512GB drive in your Blade already. The Samsung PM851 in the 2014 Blade is an overall better drive than the MT800 due to a better controller (more IOPS). The M600 I got from ErwinComp for $259.

Here is a table of known available 512GB M.2 drives and their on-paper specs.



Quick Tutorial to swap the M.2 SSD on the 2014 blade.

WHAT YOU NEED:

• T5 driver for the bottom cover screws
• Small Phillips driver for the SSD retention screw
• Micro flat tip (or something similar) to carefully flip the ribbon cable retention bracket to remove and replace that cable.

NOTE: If you're like me and some of your chassis screws were slightly stripped, pressing the micro flat tip into them worked for me. It catches across two of the grooves on the torx socket somewhat easily. Just be extremely careful removing these as they strip easily and be careful not to try to tighten them too much. I would gather using some weak blue loctite screw bond would be better option than stripping them all trying to tighten too much.

EDIT: I procured a higher quality T5 driver, it seems to do a better job not stripping, I think the driver itself was part of the issue here. Check iFixit store.

1. Annotated Pic before removing cables:


2. Cables unplugged, easy part, remove the OLD SSD


3. TADA, just carefully put the cables back now, close latch on ribbon and
push the other cable back in.


CLONING (OR.. NOT CLONING, BUT BACKUP RECCOVERY)

Thanks to @wawawa mentioning it, I grabbed Macrium Reflect v6 (paid for it) to try it out as I was using Acronis. I have to say their WinPE recovery creation is much better (actually looks correct at 3200x1800 to boot!), and it's backup features are very comparable to Acronis, so I've switched to using that for backups now. If you want to know more, read the TL;DR down below, I have Macrium now configured close to what Acronis was doing. Most of what I said applies to Macrium as well (updating WinPE USB Key etc..)

EDIT: 05/24/2015, I'm completely changing this as it seems the best way is just to do a backup and restore it onto the new drive. True cloning with UEFI is a total pain.

How I cloned to these drives:

1. Use Macrium to create WinPE bootable recovery USB key flash drive.
2. Use Macrium to create a FULL PARTITION BACKUP of your Blade's original drive onto an external USB drive that can hold it.
3. Put the new empty drive in the blade, as above.
4. Boot the Macrium WinPE USB key: (hold F12 on boot when prompted to choose boot drive)
5. Select "Restore", Choose the backup file on the USB drive from step 2.
6. Choose the empty drive you installed in the Razer as the destination.
7. Restore away, will take some time depending on the speed of your USB drive.
8. Power down, disconnect all the USB stuff and try to boot.
9. If it works, YAY, if it doesn't.. I had to do this other stuff as well...
10. Reconnect your Macrium USB recovery KEY, boot from that again, this time without the old drive connected over USB
11. Attempt to fix the Windows boot problems again (same menu option). This time, it should actually work with all green checks.
12. Try to boot again, should work this time.
13. Thanks @mario64, they had to use AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 5.6 to extend the new partition to the full free space of the drive.

Have fun!

 

2015 Razer Blade QHD+ with 256GB M.2SSD:

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for the tutorial. Do you have any experience with Macrium Reflect Free Edition for cloning?

Also, do you have any pictures that shows how to replace the drive? I found this on youtube but it appears to be for the 2013 model. Is the 2014/2015 model similar to the 2013 model?

 

I haven't used Macrium, sorry. I do know there's many clone and backup applications and processes out there and there's definitely more ways to do this than I did (I probably even made a mistake somewhere). I just finally found a process that works with Acronis for the Blade so I'm going to stick with that.

I updated the OP with images for swapping the SSD. I had taken a few images just didn't update it yet.

 

Thanks for the speedy update =). These pictures will be very helpful once I get my hands on the Blade.

 

2014 256GB, is there a reason why my write is a bit lower than you guys numbers? Edit: I'm sorry, idk why the picture is so big.

 

The 512GB drives have a much better write speed than the smaller drives due to more NAND onboard creating parallelization of writes. Think of it like a larger striped RAID array. This probably has something to do with the controller as well.

I just noticed the benchmarks provided for the 2015 are a 256GB drive as well. Consider that LiteON probably has smaller and higher number of NAND, the reason that same capacity drive has a higher write speed.

I wonder what the 512GB drive that comes with the 2015 performs like? I tried to find those LiteON to buy, but they are not easily findable for consumers to purchase. Crucial really needs to bring back the M550. Also, Razer really needs to go PCIe for the 2016 blade.

As an aside, it looks like the Transcend 512GB is down to $203 on Amazon!!

 

I found what might be the best drive to buy right now:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6&cm_re=CT500MX200SSD4-_-20-148-956-_-Product

Crucial 500GB MX200 m.2 sata type 2280

 

If only they made 1TB options...I would buy instantly!

 

Super informative post hfm! Sorry you had to go through all that trouble to clone your SSD over haha. I'll definitely try your last method if I ever get to this point in the process.

By the way, I watched that video that wawawa posted, and it seems like the guy disconnected three cables instead of just the one that was overtop of the SSD. Do you think that this is necessary? (I'd like to mess around the last amount of cables if possible) - Like say to disconnect the board from the battery before disconnecting the SSD or something that I'm not aware of...

 

I just power off. If you're careful it SHOULD be fine. At your own risk and all that.

 

What about this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Technology-MTFDDAT512MBF-1AN12ABYY-Micron-512gb/dp/B00O071G0M

 

That's not M.2, it's mSATA.

It has to be type 2280 m.2 SATA.

 

Opps sorry posted wrong one.

This one: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Techn...24020624&sr=1-1&keywords=micron+m.2+sata+2280

 

I wonder if they are working on the 1TB versions.

 

That would definitely work, though it's a little on the expensive side. Oops. Crucial is Micron's consumer division. Should jump on it if you're interested. I'll add it to the table.

 

What does the 2280 mean?

Also can you guys check this out for me? Apparently the marketplace part of this forum is dead.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/pc-razer-blade-14-2014-and-razer-blade-r2-2012.771360/

 

22mm x 80mm

 

i've got a 256GB BLADE 14 (2014) and been hoping to find an affordable upgrade option to 512Gigs.

Transcend seems cool, but if as you say - these Crucial drives are cooler, which one among the two links given above, should I buy? i.e: which one's better in terms of performance and of the right specs of my laptop ??

Crucial Technology MTFDDAV512MBF-1AN12ABYY Micron M600 512gb Ssd M.2 2280

or

Crucial MX200 CT500MX200SSD4 M.2 Type 2280SS (Single Sided) 500GB SATA 6Gbps (SATA III) Micron 16nm MLC NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

????

Thank you peepz.

 

It seems they are very evenly matched except for the extra 12GB on the micron.

Also, take into consideration the crucial mx200 has those extra 12GB (9%) set aside for remapping spare in the case the drive has an issue with any sectors.

If I had the expendable income I would buy them all and do a real shootout with a wider array of tests, but that's crazy.

 

I'm looking to buy that 500 Gb MX200 but I'd should like to see some hands-on experiences with it first

The old Crucial M550 512 GB had problems with idle power consumption and heat generation...I'm curious how this one fares

 

Here is my benchmark from crystal. Micron M600 512GB.

 

That's fantastic.

I broke down and ordered an M600 as well. Got it for $259

I'll have it in my hands tomorrow.

I have some interesting benchmarks so far for the two drives I have. I'm going to completely rewrite the OP for some things I've done.

 

The screen calibrated pretty good too.

 

Updated OP with new benchmarks, a Micron M600 included (thanks @kingcow ), and new cloning using Macrium Reflect (thanks @wawawa )

 

What did you use to calibrate it?

 

I have x-rite calibrator

 

Why did you need to recalibrate? There is a profile that ships with the unit for that panel.

 

You should read up on monitor calibration. One size does not fit all, even the same panel model. Your environment can affect it as well, especially if you do design or photo work professionally.

 

You don't mention in your update which version of Macrium Reflect you use! I assume the free addition?

Also, @hfm you have done a fantastic job updating this!

Thanks

 

@kingcow how is that compared to the Spyder4Elite? I was debating getting either of them (or both) I heard good things about the S4E but it seems that less people own an X-Rite.

 

Version 6, bought it. OP updated. I'm sure it will also hold true with v6 30 day trial, as the only thing that doesn't come with the trial is the clone recover to dissimilar hardware, I don't think a HDD size change counts there.

Not sure how it would relate to v5, though I would imagine v5 is probably similar in some respect.

 

Nice write up!

This makes me want to swap out my m.2 in my 2015. Place in a 512 Samsung xp941 (ridiculous reads and writes - 1170mb/s and 930mb/s respectively)
Can sell the 256gb to offset the cost. Would be unreal fast!

 

That drive is PCIe, you need a SATA drive. Choose one of the ones in the table and find it online.

I was hoping Razer would have switched to PCIe in the 2015, but it didn't happen. Maybe 2016.

 

Ah thanks. Totally forgot that. Here is one that can be added to the list: What you guys think? http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX52842

 

do you lose warranty if you swap out the stock?

 

That'll work, I'll add it tomorrow.

Just swap the original back in if you need to RMA.

 

Updated OP, added 2 drives to the table.

 

I'm a newbie at all this stuff... so I followed your guide but when it came to removing the ssd I found that it wouldn't budge. It appears to be stuck with some sticky strip, and yes I did unscrew the screw keeping it in place, although the strip seems to be doing a fine job of that. The strip almost looks like blu-tack but its not, and its stuck down pretty well. I don't want to yank the ssd and cause damage to something.

I was wondering if you, or anyone else, have encountered this problem and what you did about it??

 

This is hilarious, so they started using loctite or something to try to stop people from replacing the SSD?

 

Do you have a 2014 or 2015 version? Can you take a picture to show what that strip is?

 

Mine is the 2014 model. I bought it in January of this year so the strip may be something that they've only added in recently. Also, I haven't come across anyone else who has encountered this problem. I did some research last night and I believe that it's a piece of 2mm adhesive strip (double sided sticky). It's width is about that of the ssd. The strip is doing a fine job of keeping the ssd stable, I could just about move it with my fingers with some force.
I'm interested to know how other people's ssd's are fitted in theirs razers, because the 2mm adhesive bridges the gap from the board to the ssd slot, keeping my ssd horizontally level. I'd imagine if mine didn't have the strip, it would sit sort of tilted.

Anyway, this an annoying issue. I've been thinking about slowly and steadily pwelding away the strip by scraping it off the board. Is there anything underneath the ssd that could potentially be damaged?

Thanks

 

Mine was only held in by the screw. 2014 model I bought in April last year.

 

Do you know or have any ideas as to how I could go about removing the strip? If there is anything sitting underneath the ssd that I could damage?

 

I think @LVNeptune probably know something about this. He's been trying to improve the cooling on his 2015 Blade and probably know what's going on underneath the ssd.

 

SSD is really easy to remove. There is a thermal pad directly under the SSD so you will need to push the SSD up a bit to detach from the thermal pad then it slides out.

 

I Have a 2015 Blade and intend to upgrade the Stock SSD. BTW, my 256GB model came with the Samsung drive. anyway, I noticed there is now a new option for m2 sata 2280 SSDs for preorder on Newegg.com. The Samsung 850EVO 500GB. It looks to have ratings pretty close to the 500GB MX200. It's currently listed for $250. what is throwing me off is the release date on the newegg page keeps increasing every day, by a day. when I first saw it the date listed was 4/5/2015. It now shows 4/8/2015. I think I'm probably going to grab one provided its actually released soon. I have had good luck with Samsung SSD's in the past and bad luck with Crucial. I'll pay a couple more bucks and accept the slight difference in rated performance to get the Samsung. Ill let everyone know how it performs in benchmarks once I get my hands on one. I have't seen any reviews on it yet, so it will be interesting to see how it compares to the other models listed in this thread.

 

This is very exciting. I was nervous we wouldn't see any more M.2 drives in favor of PCI-E. Still holding out for a 1TB option!

 

They're going to have to get the density up on flash nand before we will ever see a 1TB.

Now that I think about it, there's PCIe 960GB and 1TB 2280 drives, they theoretically can possibly..

 

Ok good sir(s). I will require your help. changing m.2s is the easy part i am struggling with the cloning of the disk (using reflect), so I have a few questions:

1. When creating the winpe bootable usb key, did you create it within the old m.2 (ISO)? or on a external flash (as bootable USB)?
2. Have you tried just cloning the drive and then restoring using the winpe key? Does that work?
3. Reflect question: Did you create the winpe using the Windows or Linux options? What is the difference?
4. Is it possible to do the procedure as described on the free version of reflect?
5. This is a bit of a long question but is it possible to get a video detailing the steps you took on clonning and restoring the data?