Which SSD M2 I can put on Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-51D3

Olariu

I need to know which type of SSD type M2 I can put on my laptop Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-51D3 (the second hard drive). From the bigining I received the laptop with one hdd normal with 1 TGb capacity .

brummyfan2

Hi,
Acer recommends a M.2 SATA SSD but you could be able to install a NVMe SSD, please make sure that you will not void warranty by opening the back cover, you can contact your local Acer Service centre in your country to verify:http://www.acer.com/worldwide/support/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/6siclj/600_gaming_laptop_with_mx150_gpu_acer_aspire_5/

brummyfan2

Hi,
Acer recommends a M.2 SATA SSD but you could be able to install a NVMe SSD, please make sure that you will not void warranty by opening the back cover, you can contact your local Acer Service centre in your country to verify:http://www.acer.com/worldwide/support/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/6siclj/600_gaming_laptop_with_mx150_gpu_acer_aspire_5/

Olariu

Thank you !

brummyfan2

You are welcome 

WeeveSter

Will you be able to boot from it?. Also what size m2 ssd?. I mean the length.

WeeveSter

I'm considering doing this but I want to know if my laptop supports the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 m2. I read another thread where a guy said it only supported x2 or two lanes, so slower than what you'd pay for. My laptop is

Aspire A515-51

brummyfan2

WeeveSter said:

I'm considering doing this but I want to know if my laptop supports the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 m2. I read another thread where a guy said it only supported x2 or two lanes, so slower than what you'd pay for. My laptop is

Aspire A515-51

Hi,
Yes, you can boot from a M.2 NVMe SSD in this model, it will use 2lanes and run at half the advertised speed but still 3x the speed of a SATA SSD. The form factor is M2 2280( 22mm Wx80mm L), for example:http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/960evo/

WeeveSter

Thanks. However after doing some googling that doesn't make sense to me. The motherboard is M-Keyed and the m-key delivers four lanes. Only older A,B,and E keys are the ones that only deliver 2 lanes. These motherboards even already have the option of including an SSD already in a different model/configuration.

brummyfan2

Hi,
Yes, the motherboard is capable of PCIe3.0x4 but it is reduced to 2 lanes to minimise the heat it generates, as you are aware that the laptops are limited in space compared to Desktops, so most of the laptops will be limited to operate at 2lanes.

WeeveSter

I can't see an SSD generating so much heat it causes a problem. Hard drives will get much more hot, especially an older 5400 RPM HDD that it came with, yet there is no specific fan just for the HDD in the unit. Maybe if the SSD was constantly running 24hrs a day but I don't see that. Do you work for Acer?. How is this reduction in lanes available accomplished?. Is it a special bios?. It seems counter productive to limit the capability of the motherboard like that. Did Acer run tests proving this theory that an Nvme m2 connected SSD gets so hot that it causes problems?. Before limiting the motherboard capabilities it would make more sense to make design changes with possibly an added fan or something. I mean if you are going to have that slot available for use you might as well look into things like this before essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 

Samsung actually already has something called "Dynamic Thermal Throttling" that will throttle the drive when it get too hot. Also it takes a lot before this technology even kicks in. You really have to work the SSD hard.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/samsung-960-pro-512gb-m2-nvme-pcie-solid-state-drive/thermal-throttling-and-final-thoughts.html

There may not even be a problem with these drives producing too much heat under normal use conditions. I'd really like to know if Acer did any kind of testing on this, or just "assumed" it'd be a problem.

brummyfan2

WeeveSter said:

I can't see an SSD generating so much heat it causes a problem. Hard drives will get much more hot, especially an older 5400 RPM HDD that it came with, yet there is no specific fan just for the HDD in the unit. Maybe if the SSD was constantly running 24hrs a day but I don't see that. Do you work for Acer?. How is this reduction in lanes available accomplished?. Is it a special bios?. It seems counter productive to limit the capability of the motherboard like that. Did Acer run tests proving this theory that an Nvme m2 connected SSD gets so hot that it causes problems?. Before limiting the motherboard capabilities it would make more sense to make design changes with possibly an added fan or something. I mean if you are going to have that slot available for use you might as well look into things like this before essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 

Samsung actually already has something called "Dynamic Thermal Throttling" that will throttle the drive when it get too hot. Also it takes a lot before this technology even kicks in. You really have to work the SSD hard.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/samsung-960-pro-512gb-m2-nvme-pcie-solid-state-drive/thermal-throttling-and-final-thoughts.html

There may not even be a problem with these drives producing too much heat under normal use conditions. I'd really like to know if Acer did any kind of testing on this, or just "assumed" it'd be a problem.

I don't work for Acer, if you contact Acer Support in your region, they might be able to provide a detailed explanation, it's not only Acer but other Brands have also restricted to 2lanes in most of the laptops.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17r4-samsung-960-evo-heat-issue.810136/
http://www.acer.com/worldwide/support/

WeeveSter

Took a look at that link and although those guys seem to be freaking out over higher temperatures it doesn't seem to cause an actual problem with the drives. However there are also some heatsinks that you can install if you want them cooler. Those guys are either running their SSD too hard or there is an actual problem with, maybe with a firmware update it would fix it or they just have to RMA their drives. Point is that artificially lower the capability of the motherboard isn't going to help a manufacturer defect with product that attaches to that motherboard. I've even search the newegg reviews for "overheat" for Samsung 960 EVO and just found "Pros" where the reviewers say that it does not overheat!. The manufacturer of the product, in this case SSD that has a problem.

I'm guessing that maybe Acer or you say other companies have done this too to avoid liability IF the SSD gets too hot...

Maybe you could find me a link where these companies explain that they do this, or write a bios to disable two of the lanes for the M.2 Slot M key socket 3 configuration?. That would be very helpful.

Thanks a lot for you time and for the help.

At this point I'm not sure it's worth it anymore to upgrade to the m.2 Nvme SSD. The 500GB one is around $230 at new egg, and this laptop is only worth a little more than $400. $449 with free shipping at Wal-Mart.com. So I'd be paying a little over 50% of the total cost of the laptop to upgrade it to an SSD that I paying for 4 lanes and only get half that. So it doesn't seem worth it. Maybe a Sata 3 2.5 500 GB drive might be worth it since it would cost a lot less but still be a lot faster than the 5400 rpm mechanical drive that came with it. Still have not decided yet. 

brummyfan2

WeeveSter said:

Took a look at that link and although those guys seem to be freaking out over higher temperatures it doesn't seem to cause an actual problem with the drives. However there are also some heatsinks that you can install if you want them cooler. Those guys are either running their SSD too hard or there is an actual problem with, maybe with a firmware update it would fix it or they just have to RMA their drives. Point is that artificially lower the capability of the motherboard isn't going to help a manufacturer defect with product that attaches to that motherboard. I've even search the newegg reviews for "overheat" for Samsung 960 EVO and just found "Pros" where the reviewers say that it does not overheat!. The manufacturer of the product, in this case SSD that has a problem.

I'm guessing that maybe Acer or you say other companies have done this too to avoid liability IF the SSD gets too hot...

Maybe you could find me a link where these companies explain that they do this, or write a bios to disable two of the lanes for the M.2 Slot M key socket 3 configuration?. That would be very helpful.

Thanks a lot for you time and for the help.

At this point I'm not sure it's worth it anymore to upgrade to the m.2 Nvme SSD. The 500GB one is around $230 at new egg, and this laptop is only worth a little more than $400. $449 with free shipping at Wal-Mart.com. So I'd be paying a little over 50% of the total cost of the laptop to upgrade it to an SSD that I paying for 4 lanes and only get half that. So it doesn't seem worth it. Maybe a Sata 3 2.5 500 GB drive might be worth it since it would cost a lot less but still be a lot faster than the 5400 rpm mechanical drive that came with it. Still have not decided yet. 

You are welcome 

WeeveSter

@brummyfan2 So do you have any links to confirm that Acer and other companies have used bios programming to disable 2 of the four lanes for the m2 connector on the motherboard?

WeeveSter

@brummyfan2 for the life of me I can't find anything through google saying that laptop manufacturers do what you say they are doing. Please provide me a link.

WeeveSter

@brummyfan2 I just chatted with Acer support and they said there is no limitation on the pci express lanes of the m2 slot on my laptop. I'm not sure where you got this information because you have not provided any proof of this.

WeeveSter

Hmm...Upon further research I found that the laptop may not support pci experess 3.0 x 4. Yes it has a m2 socket but that's only the socket or interface. I don't believe it supports pci express 3.0 x 4. So upgrading with pci express Nvme SSD would not be possible.

WeeveSter

An Nvme drive is not supported by this model or any variation of this model. Just because it's a m2 slot doesn't mean it supports nvme. The models with SSDs installed are not nvme and are Sata 3.

brummyfan2

@WeeveSter Could you please visit other manufacturers' forums and you will find many instances of this type of query(regarding the speed of NVMe SSD).

Olariu

I write this because I think is good for everybudy to know . I put in my laptop , Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-51D3 , the second hard drive SSD M2 PCIe 3.0x4 and the laptop is work very good . The windows 10 is start in approximate 12 second , the big applications is open quickly . The SSD is Western Digital black , 256 GB , M2 , PCIe 3.0x4 , 2280 (https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-ssd/wd-black-pcie-ssd.html) . In the laptop don't exist screw to fix the SSD but I used one screw from the HDD drive .

jkeychen

Olariu said:

I write this because I think is good for everybudy to know . I put in my laptop , Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-51D3 , the second hard drive SSD M2 PCIe 3.0x4 and the laptop is work very good . The windows 10 is start in approximate 12 second , the big applications is open quickly . The SSD is Western Digital black , 256 GB , M2 , PCIe 3.0x4 , 2280 (https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-ssd/wd-black-pcie-ssd.html) . In the laptop don't exist screw to fix the SSD but I used one screw from the HDD drive .

Hey thanks for update! 

can you please send some bench-marking photo of the nvme ssd if it work on pcie 3.0 x 4 speed. 

would appreciate if you do so. Thanks!