Series 9 Owners: Third party mSATA upgrades

That's simple: i would buy this SSD, if the performance was definitley better. I'm not an enemy of myself.

 

The key issue with the U100 is that it chokes if hit with multiple concurrent reads and writes. This often happens if you have a lot of programs open then open another which means that Windows has to dump some RAM contents to the virtual memory on the SSD while trying to load the new program and its data. The result can be that the computer appears to freeze for 10 seconds or so until the backlog is cleared. In less demanding situations the U100 performs OK and is, as you note, better than an HDD.

The secondary issue with the U100 is (unless you have a 256GB version) the lack of space by the time Windows and the recovery partition have taken their slices of the cake. Anyway, don't upgrade until you feel the need to.

John

 

The primary upgrade reason for me was that I knew 128GB (119 actual) wasn't going to be enough storage space for the OS, apps and my personal data. I would rather buy my own mSATA storage device and save a few bucks.

Another consideration for me was knowing I have the original drive waiting in the wings if I need to have the machine serviced under warranty. I can pull my drive out, pop the original drive in without any personal data, and not worry as much about a repair.

Then of course there's the performance issue.

 

I just swapped out my own hard drive, and for some reason it didn't go as smoothly as most others here So here's my experiences in case it can help others.

This is very rough and ready and there may be a great many more efficient ways to do this but here's what I did:

0. Check if there is any point to upgrading your hard drive at all

Hit F2 at start to go into BIOS. It will say the name of your hard drive. Then read the rest of this thread - if it's not Sandisk then there's less case for upgrading.

1. The screws on the bottom seem to be JIS screws, which strip more easily than regular Philips.

JIS is a very slightly different screw head. I believe slightly more shallow and.. well, google image search to see for yourself. The net effect is they may strip more easily than desired. I had three stuck screws after my first screwdriver, and ended up with one completely stripped one. Ouch. What didn't work at all: Epoxy a screwdriver bit into the screw and turn it. What did work: Use a rotary tool with a suitable diamond drill bit, one with a tiny lip rather than a big disc, to cut a horizontal indent across the screw to fit a regular flat-headed screwdriver in.

2. Taking off the cover

Very easy: Leverage SD card slot, and taking it off on the side furthest from the hinge first worked well, then bending down and backwards. . There's nothing in the hinge that breaks easily.

3. Replacing the HDD

The Sandisk HDD is screwed in with two tiny screws. I recommend a suitable flathead screwdriver that just fits. Pull it out by the sticker and slide in the new one.

4. Not recognising USB booting?

There's an option in the BIOS that is not on the boot menu called "Fast Boot" or something similar. The very helpful description is approximately: 'If this is on, your computer boots faster. If this is off, your computer boots slower. Legacy USB support.' This is by default enabled, and no USB device worked to boot with until it was disabled.

5. Last resort, getting PXE to work

I struggled for ages not knowing about Fast Boot, and then for ages getting network boot to run. If at all possible, go with USB boot instead. To get PXE to work, I had to set PXE to Legacy, Secure boot to off, and pick the other option from UEFI, and use a utility called tftd32.

6. Getting Windows 8 installed UEFI and GPT style

This is if you care about UEFI and GPT. One way that worked:

1. Format a USB stick between 4 and 16GB to FAT32 (larger sizes with exFAT or even NTSF may also work)
2. Copy the contents of the Windows 8 disk to it
3. Download the utility Bootsect. Open a CMD prompt. Type: "Bootsect [drive letter]: /nt60". Drive letter should be the letter of the Flash drive. No responsibility taken if you do it on your C drive.
4. Boot the Samsung lappy with this
5. You should boot into Windows 8 setup (In fact, all of the steps above may not really be needed, but it worked, so..)
6. On the first or second options screen, go 'repair your computer'.
7. If you search around a bit you should find the option to open a CMD prompt.
8. Type DISKPART. This is a fairly advanced utility, and reading about the various commands by typing HELP is recommended.
9. The following commands may be useful: LIST - LIST DISK - SELECT DISK 0 (probably) - DETAIL - DETAIL DISK - CLEAN - FORMAT FS=NTFS (it may halt a while at 0%) - CONVERT GPT.
10. No need to create any partitions - once convert GPT has been processed, it's good to go
11. type EXIT, restart the computer. Go into BIOS and make sure AHCI is set to Manual-Enable.
12. Windows setup runs again. You should have a choice to install it to the new drive. It's going to say that the drive is not compatible at the bottom - but you can still hit Next and it installs perfectly fine. It may halt a while at 0%.

X. You will probably lose the Samsung Recovery Solutions option

Unless you take some additional unknown steps, you'll lose the built-in backup partition. It's no big deal really, but something to be aware about. Mostly the same function can be done with many other utilities. To see what won't work unless you do it the right way, which I have no idea how, hit F4 on startup.

 

Thank you guys (John and Thors.Hammer) for the input. Sooner or later i'm going to do the upgrade. Sooner i think.

 

Hello again all,

Thought I'd give an update on what happened with my bios-locked-out laptop.
Today, to my jubilation when I loaded up SW Update on a whim I saw that Samsung have released a new BIOS update for my laptop. I installed it immediately (the loud beep at the end is quite frightening!) and it sorted out my problem, I'm now able to get into my BIOS.
I went in and set it back to UEFI only with secure boot.

Even though I'd puchased Acronis True Image I didn't fancy trying that again because it was that which had locked me out of my BIOS previously.
However, I had been reading the online manual for the laptop and had seen that Samsung mentioned using the recovery mode to clone your existing drive to a new one. For those earlier who were wondering if opening up the laptop to change your SSD invalidates your warranty, it can't do because they mention it in the manual!

So I followed the steps described in the manual (you will need a USB interface for your SSD), copied the drive and popped the new drive into the laptop. It worked! I was able to install Ubuntu 12.10 alongside Windows 8, with UEFI and Secure Boot enabled! (I ran boot-repair after installing Ubuntu to get grub set up properly)

The only problem I have now is that Windows 8 is not activated as it seems to believe I'm installing it on another computer, I shall have to give them a ring.

Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions

 

I was coming from a Sony Z with dual SSDs in a RAID and I was not very impressed with the u100 in my X3C. I noticed a problem almost immediately and quickly replaced it with a Crucial M4 256GB. Even if I hadn't noticed any issues, I still would have upgraded for the extra storage. My M4 recently died, so I had to temporarily go back to the u100 for a week. John already mentioned the main issue with the u100 so I won't bother repeating it. In non-technical language, I would call them hiccups. The X3C w/ u100 has hiccups ... short moments where nothing happens when you expect things to happen. That basically never happens with a properly functioning M4.

As already mentioned, another big benefit of upgrading your SSD is that you can keep your original u100 as a backup. I use my X3C for work and cannot afford downtime. Once I realized my M4 was dying, I simply swapped it out with my old u100, restored from a backup and was up and running in under a couple of hours. Same process when my new M4 arrived. mSATA drives aren't exactly readily available in retail stores, so its nice to know I have one ready to go if needed.

 

Ed, did you upgrade your M4 with the firmware that came out a couple of weeks ago?

 

My new M4 has been updated to the latest (first thing I did after re-imaging Win7). My bad M4 had not been updated until I called Crucial support. They had me update the firmware as part of the troubleshooting. It didn't fix the problem.

 

There are lots of reports on the Crucial forums about problems with Crucial m4 IF you have a later firmware than the 00 version. Even if you upgade to the latest 04MH.

This just happened to me, and I thought my laptop was dead for sure. But I got it fixed, and posted about it here:

M4 mSata CT256M4SSD3 not recognized after latest f... - Crucial Community

 

I also had problems with the laptop recognizing my new Crucial SSD after installing it (Firmware was already 04MH).
I found this solution which did the trick for me Why did my SSD "disappear" from my system? - Crucial Community

 

Does anyone know if the Mushkin 480GB mSATA SSD (MKNSSDAT480GB) will fit in the series 9. It looks like there is two layers of chips stacked on this, so was wondering if anyone has installed one before I pull the trigger buying one?

 

It does look like a double meat, double cheese.

If I really needed 400GB of storage I would take a chance. But that isn't going to happen until Samsung ships the 15" Series 9 with a PLS screen.

 

It looks like it has an extra layer of chips. If the thickness here (4.85mm) it is 1.1mm thicker than the Crucial m4. Whether it will fit will depends on the space between the SSD and the base of the computer. I would check this by removing the base and trying to measure how much the top of the fan stands above the existing SSD surface (it would be preferable to keep the grey pad (for heat transfer?) that Samsung put on the SSD). From my not-very-good photo here it looks feasible.



John

 

I'm having problems with my laptop recognizing my Crucial SSD via USB (in caddy) which I want in order to make copy/clone of the Sandisk SSD.
Any ideas how to fix this?

 

I didn't clone mine. I pulled the original mSATA SSD out with the Samsung factory image, installed the new Crucial M4 mSATA drive, then installed Windows 8 Pro from scratch using a retail DVD and the embedded BIOS key.

Another approach I would have used is to backup the original drive with Acronis True Image Home 2013, remove the drive, install the new drive, then run a restore to the new drive. This approach requires booting Acronis from the recovery DVD or USB stick along with a target/source external HDD.

 

As a minimum you need to disable Fast Boot in the BIOS and, if you have Windows 8 pre-installed, there may be more hoops to jump through. I have successfully cloned the (Windows 7) SSD on my Series 9 using a bootable flash drive created by Acronis TrueImage with the target SSD in an mSATA to 2.5" adapter in a 2.5" USB 3.0 enclosure so, under the right conditions it can be done.

John

 

Thanks for your inputs, I have a few things to try out now

 

Hey guys,

anybody knows whether the samsung 840 Pro (7mm) fits into the NP900X4C 15inch?

Thanks!

Christian

 

It won't fit. The mSATA form factor is much smaller than 2.5" form factor (see my photo here).

John

 

Hi everyone,

I'm one of the long suffering X3B owners who have the U100 128Gb SSD and have finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a Crucial m4 256Gb SSD and have been reading through this thread to try and understand how to do it.

My preference is to try and avoid having to do a new OS install etc and I would like to keep the Samsung utilities and recovery partition (because they do make life easier for the the less technical amongst us!). Am I right in thinking that the simplest way of doing this is to use something like Macrium to clone my current disk to the m4 disk via a USB connector and then use Macrium to keep the hibernation, recovery and system partions the same size and resize the C: partition so that I make full use of the SSD capacity?

Many thanks in advance for your help....

 

Give it a try but you might need partition management software to move the hibernation and recovery partitions so that C: can be expanded. The alternative is to delete the recovery partition and then use the space to create a big D: I would recommend the latter because (i) you still have the recovery partition on the U100 and (ii) if you keep all your data on D: and get a problem with Windows getting corrupted then you can reclone C: without losing your personal files.

John

 

Thanks for the response. The reason I was thinking of using Macrium is that it lets you "Directly copy one hard disk to another without creating an image file first. Partitions can be ordered and resized during this process" (if you believe the marketing stuff!) so that I can keep things nice and simple. Maybe I am oversimplifying things....

 

Give it a try. The joy of cloning is that you can always try again if the first attempt doesn't work. If Macrium supports USB 3.0 then using a USB 3.0 SATA adapter significantly speeds up the process.

John

 

Why don't you get the Crucial M4 that comes with the data transfer cable and EZGig IV cloning software? That's what I did and it worked perfectly.

 

I am removing my recommendation on the Crucial M4. I am still having issues with mine and although it is being replaced, I won't buy another Crucial drive in the future. Probably moving back to Intel.

 

Hi guys, quick question. I am in the process of deciding between the x1 carbon from lenovo and the series 9 from samsung. I am looking at models with the 256gb SSD series 9. Is the 256gb drive in teh series 9 from a better drive or is it equivalent to the poor 128gb U100.

Thanks for any help

Kind Regards

 

So far, the m4 in my X4C is behaving well and the firmware upgrades are painless compared with the BP3 I put in my X3B. Doing firmware upgrades is a challenge and, if one can get it work then it's guaranteed to wipe the disk. I'm not convinced that drive is 100% healthy but it is difficult to prove that it isn't.

It would be very bad luck if you get a 256GB U100. I recall one member getting that drive. Most get a 256GB Liteon which scores well in benchmarks and some have received a 256GB Samsung. A 512GB X3E is now listed but we don't know what SSD is inside.

John

 

I noticed shortly after my post that Windows indicated the video driver crashed. It is very possible the crash was a result of a Flash site since I have hardware acceleration turned on in the browser.

Maybe my conclusion was a little hasty. We'll see. More history needed.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Pot luck scares me, but i must say the series 9 is a very sexy machine.

 

I SO very much want to buy one of these Series 9 13" models. But I've only ever cracked open a Dell which was designed to be maintained by users, and although I've read this entire thread I'm still scared by the thought of doing it on a brand new machine.

Is there a single step-by-step instruction on what to do? A few things I'm not sure about:

- I see that some of the screws are covered by rubber bumpers. How easy are these to get off and on again (my current Dell is missing a few from my various attempts to get inside),

- do we at least have a comprehensive view on the right BIOS settings for the disk cloning process? I've never tinkered in the BIOS and the thought of it makes me nervous.

- which is easiest? Cloning the disk and expanding the partitions? O just reinstalling Windows from scratch?

Sorry, these are probably basic questions. I look at other ultra books with the larger SSD already installed, but every time I play with one of these in the store I know what I really want!

 

0. Make backups using Samsung Recovery Solution and, if you want a recovery partition on the new disk and are not cloning then search for posts about the USB Admin Tool.
Then:
1. Disconnect mains power
2. Disconnect battery by poking an unbent paperclip
3. Carefully remove the 10 screws fixing the base then lift the front edge of the base and unclip the plastic hooks along the joint between the hinges
4. Remove the thermal pad on the SSD and remove the two screws fixing the SSD
5. Slide out the SSD and slide in the new one. Then replace the screws and thermal pad.
6. Replace the base making sure the join along the back is clipped together before carefully tightening the screws.
7. Either boot the computer (if SSD cloned)or start installing Windows (you will probably need to disable Samsung Fast Boot in the BIOS.

All 10 screws fixing the base are visible. You need a Philips size 0 screwdriver in good condition.

If Windows 8 is installed then it's safest and easiest to disable UEFI and SecureBoot. However, I'll leave others to give the details.

Opinions vary and may be made more complicated by Windows 8. Personally, I used cloning but haven't tried doing battle with Win 8.

I would point out that the NP900X3E has been announced in some countries. It has an FHD display and the SSD options seem to be 256GB and 512GB. However, that model will arrive at a price premium relative to the existing models.

John

 

Hi guys,


I purchased the MSATA SSD3 (256M4SSD3) for my S9 laptop.


I connected it via these two items to my USB drive as I want to clone the Operating system.


Amazon.com: Syba mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch SATA Adapter (SY-ADA40050): Computers & Accessories
Amazon.com: Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure: Electronics


Windows 8 makes a sound when I connect it but like 4-5 seconds later it makes another sound and then I neither see it in the device list nor through dispart nor through the disk manager in the control panel.


For some reason the laptop recognized it once (I really don't know why) and it showed up in the disk manager tool but whenever I wanted to set it up it said that the disk has some cyclic redundancy check error.


Is the disk broken? As said: Windows doesn't even recognize it anymore.


Please let me know.


Christian

 

Sounds broken. Can you check it in another machine, ideally directly to SATA? I guess you could try to flash it, but if it was me, I would exchange it before going through the clone. There's about a 10-20% failure rate on SSDs, though crucial is a fairly reputable brand.

 

I think I have the same little mSATA to SATA sled. When I have used it with a mSATA drive, I am connecting via an eSATA to SATA cord.

If you are going to use a 2.5" enclosure, I would try another one if you have one available.

 

So I took out the Sandisk U100 (the SSD my laptop came with orginaly) and did 2 things:

1) Put in the U100 into the setup with the external MSATA-SATA2-USB
--> Worked fine. My other laptop recognized the U100 right away and I was able to access it. This tells me that the problem lies within the crucial card.

2) Put in the Crucial SSD into my new Samsung Series 9
--> Next I started Ubuntu with a USB stick and I could see the crucial card.
--> I formatted it to NTSF.
--> (Beforehand I had created a samsung bootable recovery on an external HD when the U100 was still in.)
--> So I restarted and the samsung recovery came up (obviously my goal was to recover onto the new drive) but I got some error which said that the current image is MBR and that the image is GPT.
--> Then I tried formatting again in Ubuntu (this time zero out the entire card - think it's somehow called 0x00).
--> Same MBR/GPT error.
--> And now I can't even start Ubuntu anymore because I get some missing boot manager error.

This shouldn't be this hard. Other people in this forum had a very easy time.

Any idea guys? At this point I'm close to sending the card back and maybe go for the new Intel one.

Christian

 

In the BIOS:
Is Fast Boot disabled?
Is Secure Boot disabled?
Is the OS selection on CSM OS?

 

Yes to all three. This was the only way for me to start the Ubuntu system the first time.

 

I don't think the problem is specific to the Crucial SSD. What you are encountering is related to the Windows 8 installation which uses UEFI plus the GPT disk formatting. This may be the way of the future but creates backwards compatibility issues. I can understand Samsung's recovery disc complaining - it is designed to restore onto the disc the backup was made from, so if the disc format is different then it will be confused.

John

 

That makes sense - and my intention was to put the Samsung SSD into the Laptop (I right now have no other slot available), start Ubuntu and reformat it to GPT. When I couldn't find the GPT profile I tried 0x00 testwise. And now I can't even start Ubuntu anymore (I guess it to some extend still uses the SDD even though it starts from the USB stick?).

Any advise of how I could get out of this?

Moreover: Why would the U100 be recognized without any problems but not the Crucial (when using the external MSATA to USB tool)?

 

Is that SecureBoot at work? It is designed to stop your computer being booted from another device.

John

 

Windows 8 will install on MBR without using UEFI. They are not requirements. Attached is a screenshot of the volumes on my NP900X3D with Windows 8 Pro x64. As you can see, I am using MBR and the BIOS is therefore not set to UEFI. It is set to CSM OS.



However, if you are trying to do a restore the environment must be similar enough to the source for the target restore to succeed. In other words, if the backup was taken when the machine was set to UEFI and GPT, then it MUST be that way for the restore. Secure boot adds additional teeth.

 

So what you are saying is that I would need to format the Crucial to GPT too? Do you know how I could achieve that? As said: The only way for me to even see the drive in a computer is when I put it in instead of the U100.

No. I just put the U100 and the Crucial into the external MSATA to USB thing and connected it to my old T61. The U100 was recognized immediately and I could access it. The Crucial at first was recognized for 2 seconds before it lost connection. And since I zeroed it out not even that goes.

 

Okay for some unexplainable reason the card got recognized now and it doesn't drop off.

HOWEVER when I go into the disk manager to format this thing so that I could start the cloning it says that it has 2048GB unallocated space and when I format it I get the cyclic redundancy check error.

Does
A) This message sound alarming
and
B) are there any tools I could download to try to fix it?

Would a firmware update make sense? Do I loose the warranty like that?

 

Updating to Crucial firmware 04MH (available here - make sure you select mSATA) would be worth trying (if not already at that version).

Have you considered doing a clean installation Windows off a DVD? You should be able to get an ISO file from one of the links in this thread.

John

 

This is smart advice.

I did my install to the Crucial SSD using the DVD and an external Sony DVD drive. I cannot advise what the install order (Windows versus Linux) should be because I haven't personally tested dual boot with Windows.

Actually, my last install was really a restore from an Acronis True Image Home 2013 backup. I had to replace my first Crucial M4 256GB SSD because it was having power off failures. In other words, it could still be a hardware issue you are seeing. My current environment on the NP900X3D has been running well for a week so that is a good sign. Knock on wood.

 

Okay I'm going to try that.

2 short questions though:
1. I'm only seeing links like
22D680EC53336BEE8A5B276A972CEBA104787F62
in
The Official Windows 8 Repository
Where can I download this?

2. Which version would I have to download?

Thanks for the help until now!

Christian

 

Microsoft has been leaning on website owners who publish the links so they have been removed. Put "en_windows_8_x86_dvd_915417.iso" into your favorite search engine and download a file. Then check that the checksum is as published.

Did you check the backup options on your computer to see if there is one to create a Windows disc. This used be provided by Samsung Recovery Solution but it may have changed with Windows 8.

Your alternative is to contact Samsung and ask them to provide a Windows installation disc (say that you had formatted the SSD to fix a problem with the Windows installation).

John

 

EDIT:

Decided to just order a crucial replacement card.

Short question:

Is there any chance that the external connection card
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PPZ2I8/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JQNXZC/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
destroy the SSD?

Meaning when touching it, the SSD was pretty hot.

Maybe this is a stupid question but I'm a bit cautious of putting the replacement Crucial into the card reader and then have to jump through the same hoops.

 

John/Thors:

How did you guys connect the SSD externally to your Laptop?