1TB SSD upgrade for an Aspire TC-391-UR11

According to the specs the motherboard of the TC-391-UR11 has a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD installed on it originally. I am not acquainted with Solid State Drives. I only have experience with HDD. I thought about adding a 1TB HDD to the unit but now I am looking at SSD's. Any suggestions on what 1TB SSD would be a good choice? In the beginning the estimated disk space that will be taken up on the 512 GB SSD will be around 300GB's. The computer will be used primarily for general everyday computing. Web searching, email, video streaming and some image editing with Corel PSP 9. Thank you kindly for any suggestion.

Accepted answers

ttttt

@thebreeze

If you are the current user of the TC-391-UR11, then you should have some experiences with M.2 NVMe SSD. The bootup time from a M.2 NVMe SSD can be less than half minute and usually two minutes or more for booting up from a spinning HDD.

Since you said the estimated disk usage will be around 300 GB, then the original 500 GB can handle that capacity without problem. When I got my TC-885-UA91, it was shipped with WD SN 520 x2 M.2 NVMe SSD (only 1,700 MB/s read). This drive was replaced by a Silicon Power A80 x4 ( 3,400 MB/s read) by me. I suspect the TC-391-UR11 probably came with a x2 drive too. As the owner, you can verify that.

Personally I have close to ten M.2 NVMe SSD, mostly 500 GB capacity and about 300 GB being used for those most used PCs with Win 10 Pro and Win 10 Home. Other drives used for different Linux versions have about 150 GB used.

My suggestion for you is to get a high end gen 3 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD (3,400 MB /s read) to utilize the full performance of the PC. Lower price NVMe SSDs will save you some, but at the expense of performance.

Here are some of the high end gen 3 x4 drives that I used (excluding gen 4 and x2 drives):

WD SN 750 Black
SS 970 EVO
Silicon Power A80
Sabrent 1 TB Rocket

I am happy about all of them so far.

Note: Don't forget to get a heat sink with the drive to prevent thermal throttling.

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All comments

William_mk2

thebreeze

Kindly go through the details which is captured from service manual designed of your computer.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/vh/zjs2j2lhsakd.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/42/918sss654fhh.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/di/oubncd9szw5j.png

You can use the 1 tb ssd on your computer.

I would like to provide some additional info which will really help you.

Kindly go through the details given below. The info provided below will be very helpful to get the current memory and ssd details of your computer and the options to upgrade it.

Please visit the website given below. There is an option to "start your scan " and " select your computer " . Please chose the options and try it. It will show you the memory and SSD’s details and the best upgrade options for you..

https://www.crucial.com/

It will tell you what you currently have and what you can add for memory and SSD's.

Note: If you decide to buy you can always compare the prices by visiting other websites or stores and then you can decide. We are providing the info of scan app just to show you the upgrade options. You can even download similar scan apps from other memory upgrade websites too.

To check the compatibility of ram which you can use on your computer.. Get CPUz and check it with that in SPD section of all the RAM and specs that you have, its a quick and simple way to check all OEM specs and what you have in your system.

ssd.png

mem.png

ssd2.png

hdd.png

ttttt

@thebreeze

If you are the current user of the TC-391-UR11, then you should have some experiences with M.2 NVMe SSD. The bootup time from a M.2 NVMe SSD can be less than half minute and usually two minutes or more for booting up from a spinning HDD.

Since you said the estimated disk usage will be around 300 GB, then the original 500 GB can handle that capacity without problem. When I got my TC-885-UA91, it was shipped with WD SN 520 x2 M.2 NVMe SSD (only 1,700 MB/s read). This drive was replaced by a Silicon Power A80 x4 ( 3,400 MB/s read) by me. I suspect the TC-391-UR11 probably came with a x2 drive too. As the owner, you can verify that.

Personally I have close to ten M.2 NVMe SSD, mostly 500 GB capacity and about 300 GB being used for those most used PCs with Win 10 Pro and Win 10 Home. Other drives used for different Linux versions have about 150 GB used.

My suggestion for you is to get a high end gen 3 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD (3,400 MB /s read) to utilize the full performance of the PC. Lower price NVMe SSDs will save you some, but at the expense of performance.

Here are some of the high end gen 3 x4 drives that I used (excluding gen 4 and x2 drives):

WD SN 750 Black
SS 970 EVO
Silicon Power A80
Sabrent 1 TB Rocket

I am happy about all of them so far.

Note: Don't forget to get a heat sink with the drive to prevent thermal throttling.

thebreeze

Thank you both for the information. The owners manual I have does not have such detailed information as what you posted. I copied the info you presented and saved it to a folder. I do not have the computer on board yet. I hope to have it delivered sometime today. I will check out the options you both have supplied. Thank you again for your time and effort.

ttttt

@thebreeze

You are entirely welcome. I see, you are planning to get the TC-391-UR11. Acer's spec never mentioned it is x2 or x4 drive, but usually not the high end type I guess.

Adding to the list, SK Hynix Gold P31 is also a good drive.

Frankly, I cannot tell which drive is better than the others. Just say that are all good.

billsey

The key is that if you are working with image files you likely will want more storage than the 512GB SSD that comes with it. You have the mount for a 2.5" or 3.5" drive, it doesn't matter if that is a HDD or SSD, except that a SSD will be quite a bit faster and likely more reliable over the long term. You will have to get a SATA data cable with the drive, but that's a pretty standard requirement when adding a drive to a system. Don't worry about if the M.2 drive is x2 or x4, they are both much faster than a SATA drive...

thebreeze

I am now online with the TC-391-UR11. The 512GB SSD is partitioned at 50%C: and 50%

I would rather have more space on the C: drive and boot only from the

drive. I am researching partitioning process at the moment. Any tips or suggestion?

ttttt

@thebreeze

Windows users are used to have only one partition in the boot disk while Linux users are accustomed to have two partitions in the disk. For some resons, Acer choose to use two partitions for the new PCs.

You can try using partition software such as Minitool Partition Wizard to do the volume shrinking and expansion with your drive.

Normally, Windows will use the bootdrive as the C: ( even though you said you want to use the D : drive as the boot drive).

ttttt

@thebreeze

Oh!, I'll suggest backing up with a system image first before you do something drastic such as the Minitool Partition Magic.

In case something goes wrong, you can go back to origin.

billsey

Yes, it's well worth having the system image hanging around, even if only in a desk drawer. When you need it, you really need it.

You can use Disk Management in Windows to remove the extra data partition from the drive, but you likely won't be able to expand the C: drive immediately. There is usually a small recovery partition between the two bigger partitions, and Windows wants adjacent space to expand a partition. As suggested, Minitool Partition Magic Free can move that small partition to the very end of the drive, leaving the space from the deleted drive right next to C:. Once that's done then Disk Management can expand the C: partition to fill the whole space available. On my system with a 512GB SSD it give me 475GB of space for C:. The difference is mostly because programmers use 1024 for 1K and drive manufacturers use 1000 for 1K, when you move from K to M to G that makes a big difference in the displayed numbers, though there's no real actual difference in size.

thebreeze

I may just pick up a 1TB SSD like I mentioned earlier. The 500TB SSD is working fine at the moment so there is no rush. So far I am happy with the TC 391 UR II. Much faster than the previous one. I created a system image on an external hard drive. I would have rather installed it on to a flash drive but there was no option for that.Thanks again for all the help.

ttttt

@thebreeze

Thanks for reporting back. Everything should be fine now.

Yes, Windows wil not allow image backup to flash drives, I haven't tried that with other backup software yet.

As far as I recall, you have a T-885 with 8th gen Intel CPU, that should allow NVMe SSD too.

thebreeze

Thank you for your response tttt. The TC-885 with 8th gen Intel CPU locked up on the ACER welcome screen with " Preparing Automatic Repair " buffering into eternity.. I tried everything from the windows repair disc to resetting the BIOS jumper inside the computer to get the BIOS to load. Nothing seemed to work. I was able to load Linux Mint. I tried some repair from it with no luck. I gave up ion it and purchased a TC-391-URII with an AMD Ryzen 3 4300 quad core-processor. The TC-391 is the subject of this thread. Thanks again for your help.

ttttt

@thebreeze

Since you can use Linuxmint with the TC-885, there should be no harware problem with it.

I have the experience helping a friend to fix his PC using its "Preparing Automatic Repair" and restore menu options (with ALT+F10) including restore points and other things, everything failed.

Finally, the problem sorted out by downloading the latest Win 10 to a Media Creation Tool created flash drive from Microsoft and performed a clean install from that flash drive. If you want, you can try that.

thebreeze

ttttt said:

@thebreeze

Here are some of the high end gen 3 x4 drives that I used (excluding gen 4 and x2 drives):

WD SN 750 Black
SS 970 EVO
Silicon Power A80
Sabrent 1 TB Rocket

I am happy about all of them so far.

Note: Don't forget to get a heat sink with the drive to prevent thermal throttling.

I looked at the SSD's you recommended and was most interested in the Silicon Power A80 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 (SU001TBP34A80M28AB). I suppose I would have to clone it from the original 512GB SSD to use it. Is this correct? If so exactly what would that entail? Thank you for your time.

thebreeze

One more question please. What would be a good heat sink for the Silicon Power A80? Thanks again.

ttttt

@thebreeze

My 500GB Silicon Power A80 is used in the TC-885-UA91 as primary drive for Win 10 Home. The health status of it depleted to 97% after 20 months of usage, according to the Crystal Disk Info program. If the health status depletion is directly proportional, then I can expect the drive can last more than two decades, not bad. 1 TB model should have double the life of 500 GB model.

Two methods. Yes, you may want to use cloning software ( such as Macrium Reflect, Acronics, Aoemi...etc.) for easy cloning from the original 512GB drive to the new 1 TB drive via an adapter.

If you already have an extra external HDD/SSD with enough free space you can create a Windows system image to the external HDD/SSD and then restore the image from this external HDD/SSD to the new NVMe SSD without cloning software and external adapter.

I am curious if the stock SSD of the TC-391-UR11 is an x2 or x4 model. Can you download and run Crystal Disk Mark program to get the speed of the drive?

To replace the SSD after cloning:

Open up the desktop, remove the big piece metal HDD/SSD mounting plate by unscrewing and lift up the three plastic tabs.

Remove the side panel of the other side too.
Remove the front panel by releasing three plastic tabs at each side.
Pressing down a metal tab at the end of the DVD drive tray ( closest to the rear of the PC) and push towards the front, this will release the DVD drive.

Now you can have full access to the M.2 slot, hope you have a m2x3 screw ready ( or it maybe already screwed to the standoff).

If you are still not clear what I am talking about, go search a Youtube video about how to replace NVMe SSD for TC-391 (if not available, try TC-885, the general procedures will be the same).

Like NVMe SSDs, I use different types of heat sinks too. Some examples:

This one is most economical and actually 2 heatsinks at the price of other's 1 heatsink:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09DD1QC5Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The other should provide excellent passive cooling, and I plan to buy it for my next gen 4 NVMe drive. It is all cooper and thicker, and at a higher price. Too bad it is currently unavailable. I can wait.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C6GH8VV/?coliid=I12PJZKU7U94KO&colid=1E0PSG9CALTDD&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

thebreeze

tttt > Thank you very much for you prompt response. I believe it is a X2.

SSD: Western Digital PC SN520 NVMe SSD, supporting PCIe Gen3 x2

Crystal Disk Mark results:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/04/fvhwptseg77w.jpg

If I purchase a 1TB SSD I believe it will be a Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch 560MB/s - ( CT1000MX500SSD1

ttttt

@thebreeze

Thank you for the Crystal Disk Mark results.

Yes, this WD SN520 is the same one that came with my TC-885-UA91, only 1,700 MB/s read. That's the reason I replaced it with the Silicon Power A80 for doubling the performance.

Why the change of heart for a slower SSD and about the same price? Not for improving performance, but degrading?

thebreeze

The reason for a possible change is that I read that the Silicon Power A80 had issues when trying to migrate a Windows 10 system image to it. That may have been when trying to do a clone. It seems it worked with a clean install of Windows 10. I am still researching it so I have not really made up my mind. I would prefer the Silicon Power A80 but not if I might encounter issues with it. I am learning as I go along. The input from you and the others here has been a big help in the learning process.

ttttt

@thebreeze

It is common to see cloning issues when trying to clone from a higher capacity drive to a lower capacity one with cloning software.
Some cloning software is more reliable than others.

When migrating Win 10 from the WD SN 520 to the SP A80, I used the Windows Create System Image method (not using cloning software) and no issue encountered. Even since then, I have restored system image a few times from USB external HDD and old style internal mechanical HDD to the SP A80 and succeeded every time.

Still think that Windows system image method is highly reliable, with the exception of the system image being stored to a multi-partition drive, that may cause some potential issue.

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