C24-865 All in One SSD upgrade Would this make it much faster?

bg888
bg888 Member Posts: 2 New User
edited June 2023 in All-In-One PCs
Hi all!

Recently purchased the C24-865 with a 1TB SATA HDD.

Could anyone please confirm if I can add a 256gb M2 SDD to boot and run Windows 10 from, and keep the 1TB SATA HDD for my data?

Would this make it much faster?

Many thanks.

Ben.
[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Best Answer

Answers

  • brummyfan2
    brummyfan2 ACE Posts: 28,077 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    Hi Ben,
    Yes, you can use a M.2 SATA SSD as a boot drive and keep the HDD for storage, it will be much faster than the slow spinner drive.

  • MartinJohn00001
    MartinJohn00001 Member Posts: 636 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    @bg888
    Hi, kindly find the specifications of the unit below.
    The Hard Disk Drive specifications are listed below.

    The Solid State Drive specifications are listed below.

     I hope it is helpful to you! :)
    Also check the link below to find the upgrades to your unit.
    https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Acer/aspire-c24-865

    Kindly click "YES" to "Did this answer the question" if my answer helped you!      
    Thank you and have a Blessed Day  :3
  • bg888
    bg888 Member Posts: 2 New User
    Many thanks!
  • Essexb
    Essexb Member Posts: 1 New User
    edited March 2020
    bg888 said:
    Hi all!

    Recently purchased the C24-865 with a 1TB SATA HDD.

    Could anyone please confirm if I can add a 256gb M2 SDD to boot and run Windows 10 from, and keep the 1TB SATA HDD for my data?

    Would this make it much faster?

    Many thanks.

    Ben.
    I upgraded mine with the below, and cloned my hard drive. Best £100 ever spent on a PC, boot time went from minutes to seconds.

    WD Blue SN550 1TB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD

    WD Blue SN550 1TB...XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    Hopes this helps others decide.

    [Post edited to remove inappropriate or personal content -Acer-Manny]

  • Vicous
    Vicous Member Posts: 2 New User
    Do I need to tweak something on the BIOS before installing windows 10 on my NVMe SSD? Or I would just install windows 10 as how I should install it on a Hdd or Ssd?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,454 Trailblazer
    NVMe isn't officially supported, just the SATA mentioned above. As the previous posted said though, some owners are able to get an NVMe working (though I expect at SATA speeds since the M.2 bus is only PCIe 2.0). YMMV,  but it shouldn't involve any BIOS tweaks.
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  • Vicous
    Vicous Member Posts: 2 New User
    Oh thanks for the info
  • oldschool80
    oldschool80 Member Posts: 3 New User
    Hi Ben,
    Yes, you can use a M.2 SATA SSD as a boot drive and keep the HDD for storage, it will be much faster than the slow spinner drive.

    Hi, if you're still there. I got this PC second hand almost new. Trying to upgrade the drive, you say a SSD can be used for the OS and keep the HDD for storage. I see this PC has only one connector for a drive, so how could that be done? If so, is there some sort of splitter?
  • oldschool80
    oldschool80 Member Posts: 3 New User
    Hi Ben,
    Yes, you can use a M.2 SATA SSD as a boot drive and keep the HDD for storage, it will be much faster than the slow spinner drive.

    Hi, if you're still there. I got this PC second hand almost new. Trying to upgrade the drive, you say a SSD can be used for the OS and keep the HDD for storage. I see this PC has only one connector for a drive, so how could that be done? If so, is there some sort of splitter?
    Also, How many slots for RAM are there? I know it originally has 8GB, but is it in one slot? Let me say ACER sucks! On the info available, like specs, and support options... it's a win-win for them to have people deal with THEIR responsibility for support and options: using their own paying customers to solve the problems of their products for them... 
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,454 Trailblazer
    @oldschool80 if you look at the picture you can see an M.2 drive with the mounting screw highlighted. That's for the SSD. Adjacent to that on the edge of the motherboard is a SATA connector for a HDD/SSD that you would use for a data drive.
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  • oldschool80
    oldschool80 Member Posts: 3 New User
    billsey said:
    @oldschool80 if you look at the picture you can see an M.2 drive with the mounting screw highlighted. That's for the SSD. Adjacent to that on the edge of the motherboard is a SATA connector for a HDD/SSD that you would use for a data drive.
    Sorry, but the picture is not clear enough, and I haven't seen this motherboard yet. So the question comes, if you're able to install a M2 drive why don't use it as storage too, instead of "only for the OS"? Wouldn't using a SSD or HDD for data, slow everything to their speed defeating the purpose?
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,454 Trailblazer
    Normal usage is to have the system drive for both the OS and the user data. If you are adding a SSD to a system with a HDD installed already, you don't want to just toss the HDD. Use it for online storage of data that doesn't need fast access or for system backups.
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  • AaronPorsche
    AaronPorsche Member Posts: 4 New User

    Is it okay to raise old threads from the dead? If yes, I would be interested to know why the m.2 bus would be limited to PCIe 2.0 as the C24-865 series was available either with an Intel Core i5-8250U or with an Intel Core i3-8130U which are both Kaby Lake R (R for Refresh) and whose specs show that they support PCIe revision 3.0. Here are the detailed specs for the i5-8250U and for the i3-8130U. Is it possible that even though the CPU support PCIe 3.0, the M.2 bus somehow is being restricted to PCIe 2.0?

    Also, even if it's PCIe 2.0 on 4 lanes you can reach a bandwidth of 2 GB/s according to the table below, so 4 times higher than SATA. But you do need four lanes (i.e. a SSD with a M key as opposed to SSDs with the B+M key who only have two lanes).

    PCIe Bandwith

    Transfer Rate

    Bandwidth x1 (per lane)

    x4

    x8

    x16

    PCIe 1.0

    2.5GT/s

    250 MB/s

    1.00 GB/s

    2.00 GB/s

    4.00 GB/s

    PCIe 2.0

    5GT/s

    500 MB/s

    2.00 GB/s

    4.00 GB/s

    8.00 GB/s

    PCIe 3.0

    8GT/s

    984.6 MB/s

    3.94 GB/s

    7.88 GB/s

    15.75 GB/s

    PCIe 4.0

    16GT/s

    1969 MB/s

    7.88 GB/s

    15.75 GB/s

    31.51 GB/s

    Anyone could concur about which revision drives the second M.2 port ?

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 9,687 Trailblazer

    These are the specs of all the drives that your C24-865 AIO PC can work with and perform at its peak performance

    M.2 SSD like the PCIe 3x4 will work with your AIO PC, don't buy the really top performers of these PCIe Gen 3 x4 M.2 drives as your AIO will never ever utilize their speeds, I would buy drives like from the Acer fitted M.2 drives listed below or a an M.2 drive WD SN550 NVMe drive that will be utilized and compatible with the PCIe3 x2 read /write speeds of the C24-865 AIO Pc.

  • AaronPorsche
    AaronPorsche Member Posts: 4 New User

    Thank you Steven.

    Do you happen to know if that also applies to the C24-860 which likewise has two M.2 ports (there are very few differences in the layout of the motherboards between the C24-860 and C24-865 but the 860 accommodates a Kaby Lake CPU (supporting PCIe 3.0 as well according to the specs) while the 865 has been upgraded to Kaby Lake Refresh. The first M.2 port is obviously used by the wireless card but there's also another one, empty, as seen on the picture, so I know it's physically here, but not 100% sure that it is also electrically active and if you can use it for an M.2 NVME PCIe gen 3x4? And if it is indeed possible why did Acer not communicate about this at all as for a lot of people it would have meant to be able to conveniently keep the SATA HDD as storage for personal files (that one doesn't need to be fast) while being able to install the system on a much faster M.2 NVME SSD.

    I agree that you don't need to buy the fastest SSD on the market and my plan is to actually repurpose an old but good enough SK Hynix BC501 NVME that I happen to have in my inventory of NVME SSDs. I don't even remember where it came from: d'oh!

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,454 Trailblazer
    edited June 2023

    Here's the relevant section of the Block Diagram for the C24-865 models:

    Sorry that's not clearer, the manual isn't sampled at a higher density. The block diagram says the motherboard was designed for Skylake U/Kabylake U/R, so will be set for the lowest common traits of both. The 865 shipped with both 7th gen and 8th gen CPUs… The M.2 slot should work with NVMe x2 and x4 at x2 speeds, but the PCIe 2.0 limits things a bit, so slower than PCIe 3.0 x2 but faster than SATA.

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  • AaronPorsche
    AaronPorsche Member Posts: 4 New User

    Billsey, I think that what you show is the block diagram for the C24-860 as you can (hardly) see on what I found here:

    The C24-865 increases PCIex2 to PCIex4 as show below

    If I'm right (big if as I'm not used to search block diagrams), I can live with PCIex2 performance instead of PCIex4, as, again, I use an old repurposed NVME SSD. But thanks for showing me the way.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,454 Trailblazer

    Nope, my snip was directly out of the C24-865 SG. There are three rev of the SG and that was from the latest, 1.03. Here's the larger version:

    Yours looks like it's for a newer rev of the board than what they used in the C24-865 since it's for a Comet Lake chipset.

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