Does the 1TB HDD only, NVIDIA GTX model -- SPIN SP515-51GN-586K have SSD facility available?

I recently bought an ACER SPIN 5 SP515-51GN-586K model variant.This is an HDD only model with NVIDIA GTX graphics. I opened the back cover but could not identify the M.2 port (Image attached).

My Questions:
1. Does this model have the ability to add an additional m.2 ssd together with the HDD?
2. If so, does the Samsung EVO 970(or EVO 960) have an advantage over the Samsung EVO 860(or any other SATA based SSD) as I've read in another question in the forum that the SPIN 5 cannot take advantage of the full capabilites of NVMe (Something about being able to use only 2 lanes instead of 4)?
3. Can I clone the hdd to the ssd without using another laptop/fresh install of windows?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/00/owgt84komdh8.jpg

Accepted answers

brummyfan2

Hi,
1&2. Yes, you can add a M.2 NVMe SSD but I can not confirm that it would work at full speed, most probably only 2 lanes enabled in most of the laptops except in some high end gaming laptops.
3.You can use Minitool Partition wizard to migrate your HDD contents on to SSD.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
https://www.minitool.com/help-pw/migrate-os-to-ssd-hd.html
This is the slot for M.2 SSD:

brummyfan2

Hi,
You are welcome, no, you can not use Intel Optane memory as it's not supported in this model.

All comments

brummyfan2

Hi,
1&2. Yes, you can add a M.2 NVMe SSD but I can not confirm that it would work at full speed, most probably only 2 lanes enabled in most of the laptops except in some high end gaming laptops.
3.You can use Minitool Partition wizard to migrate your HDD contents on to SSD.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
https://www.minitool.com/help-pw/migrate-os-to-ssd-hd.html
This is the slot for M.2 SSD:

Andromon

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
1&2. Yes, you can add a M.2 NVMe SSD but I can not confirm that it would work at full speed, most probably only 2 lanes enabled in most of the laptops except in some high end gaming laptops.
3.You can use Minitool Partition wizard to migrate your HDD contents on to SSD.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
https://www.minitool.com/help-pw/migrate-os-to-ssd-hd.html
This is the slot for M.2 SSD:

Thank you so much for the prompt reply.
So just to clarify what is best in your opinion?

A 250GB NVMe EVO 970 or SATA EVO 860(Or WD Blue)? (As the price would be lesser for the SATA based).

Also while you are here, is it better to update the BIOS from the current 1.02 version to the higher version? As I have seen some user issues in the forum such as fan not working properly after the update.

brummyfan2

Hi,
You are welcome, actually as a boot drive it doesn't matter whether you have SATA SSD or NVMe SSD, you can not feel any noticeable difference between them, NVMe is more beneficial if you transfer large files very often, so I would suggest you to go for the Evo 860.
Yes, you can upgrade the BIOS to the latest version but take precaution, do not run any programs or apps, disconnect other peripherals like printers, USB devices etc. Do not switch off the laptop or touch any buttons while updating BIOS.

Andromon

brummyfan2 said:

Hi,
You are welcome, actually as a boot drive it doesn't matter whether you have SATA SSD or NVMe SSD, you can not feel any noticeable difference between them, NVMe is more beneficial if you transfer large files very often, so I would suggest you to go for the Evo 860.
Yes, you can upgrade the BIOS to the latest version but take precaution, do not run any programs or apps, disconnect other peripherals like printers, USB devices etc. Do not switch off the laptop or touch any buttons while updating BIOS.