Best way to add an SSD to my Predator p03-600?

I currently have a 1TB HDD and the system has intel octane memory.

I was planning on replacing the HDD with an SSD and have been looking at options and stated wondering if I could keep the HDD for storage and programs that don't really need the extra speed. However things seem a bit more complicated now than the last time I started tinkering around inside of a PC so I thought I'd seek out some advice before I make a catastrophic error.

The options I have seem to be...

1) Stick with original plan and just swap out the HDD with an SSD. Pros= simple and straight forward. Cons= I lose the 1tb HDD I could use as extra storage capacity.

2) Use one of the SATA 3 connection I have to put an SSD in. Pros= I keep the storage and the octane memory. Cons= Is there even anywhere to mount the ssd if I leave the hdd in? The most complicated option (imo)

3) Take the Octane memory out and install the SSD in the m.2 port. Pros=Still quite simple and straight forward & keep the hdd for storage. Cons=lose the octane memory (which I don't think will impact the ssd anyway?) and OMG what ssd fits into this? Thi sis kind of a major con to me and I'm struggling to work out what ssd I'd need to buy!

Does anyone have any advice on which option is actually better? Is there something I'm missing/getting wrong? All opinions welcome!

Thanks in advance for any help.

Accepted answers

brummyfan2

Hi,

You can go with your 3rd option, it's the best out of the three options in my opinion, you can use any M.2 NVMe SSD in the slot.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/48898899

All comments

brummyfan2

Hi,

You can go with your 3rd option, it's the best out of the three options in my opinion, you can use any M.2 NVMe SSD in the slot.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/48898899

MWatts

Thank you brummyfan2!

I was definitely leaning towards that option but was being put of by uncertainty of getting the right ssd to fit (think I've finally got my head around it)

brummyfan2

You are welcome and good luck with the upgrade 😀

MWatts

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1144195#Comment_1144195

Right I'm after some more advice/suggestions/telling off!

When I disabled the octane memory I had a system crash. Full on blue screen and reboot. Only my PC refused to boot. Even using a boot disk wouldn't get me on and an attempt to reinstall windows was met with an error message.

I chose to bite the bullet and install the ssd and do a clean install of windows. That worked fine, pc is up and running and everything working as it should be.

I can see my old HDD but can not access it at all. Get a message saying that I need to format the drive before its usable. Looking at properties it shows as 0 bits used and 0 bits available.

I will just reformat in the end but am hoping to at least save some of the stuff I had on it.

Any ideas on how I might be able to recover the information?

If I put the octane memory back in, is there anyway to turn it back on in the bios? Do you think this would even work to fix the issue?

I have a usb stick big enough to back up all the data I want to save. Sadly in my impatience I decided to prepare what I could (disable Octane and arrange what files I really didn't want to lose) whilst waiting for said usb and the new SSD to arrive. I wasn't expecting disabling the octane to cause such an issue!

Commodore_1995#

The problem occurred because you simply unplugged the optane memory. The correct way was to first disable optane memory in intel rapid storage. Disconnect the new ssd and reconnect the optane memory again to verify that the operating system boots from the hard drive. If windows boots successfully, disable memory optane here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000024626/memory-and-storage/intel-optane-memory.html

Then restart the system and backup your files. Then disconnect optane memory and install ssd again.

MWatts

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1144663#Comment_1144663

Thank you for your answer but sadly that's not the case.

I disabled the optane memory using intel rapid storage, apologies to all if that wasn't clear in my post. The crash came as the process was running. Since that crash I have been unable to boot to windows on the old HDD. I didn't unplug the optane memory from the pc case until I gave up trying to get the pc booted multiple times.