ASPIRE TC-885 series Painful just trying to find a hard drive upgrade

AllIwantForXmasIsSSD

Hello,

I've been replacing hard drives sata SSD on laptops for the past 10 yeears. It's not usual though , so I may end up doing one or two once a year. A couple of weeks back I purchased a SSD for my old laptop and when I stirpped it down I found that it wasn't Sata so I purchased a convertor cable to M.2 and found the harddrive wouldn't work well. It would work in the bios at least, but any time I tried to run windows it would not work correctly. Invalid boot disc. So anyway to cut a long story short I put it to the side and left it alone. Today though my boss decides he wants an Acer Desktop upgraded harddrive. So I checked what type of harddrive is in it and low and behold it's one of these M.2 harddrives. So I don't intend on purchasing a harddrive until I know it's going to work, but since Acer sales don't have a button that says I'd like to upgrade my exisisting computer ANYWHERE, here I am. Would anyone perchance know which drive would work to upgrade the Desktop I am trying to upgrade? Here is the all the information on it:

ASPIRE TC-885 series

Model D17E5

SNID XXXX

The drive is a 512gb. I would like to upgrade to at least 1 TB, 2TB depending on the price.

It has Windows 10 on it, but it's only 3 years old.

Thanks!

[Edited the content to add model name and to hide sensitive information]

billsey

Any systems marketed for Intel Optane support had to have NVMe x4 support, so the M.2 slot in the TC-885 models support x4. This is reflected in the block diagram for the TC-885 model line here:

So, you can put a SATA m.2 drive in, an NVMe x2 or an NVMe x4. A PCIe NVMe 4.0 x4 will run at the 3.0 x4 speeds though, not the faster mode the newest designs use. There are also three SATA slots on the motherboard, typically used for a single ODD and up to two HDDs/SSDs. The HDD/SSD mounting bracket on the front of the machine has holes for two 3.5" drives, you need adapters to mount a 2.5" drive:

As you can see the second drive (to right with orange holes) is aligned sideways from the first one (to the left). Depending on what drive is in the M.2 slot right now, I'd suggest getting a much larger one that would go in the same slot then clone the existing drive to the new one using your NVMe external USB case. Once the clone is complete just swap the two drives and boot from the new one. When you are comfortable that the new one is working well just put the old one in the case and repartition it as a data drive and use it for backups or something.

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/687417/painful-just-tyring-to-find-a-harddriveupgrade

Maybe this post will help you. I can recommend a 2.5" Sata SSD (not a mechanical HDD) like the 1TB Samsung 870 Plus EVO V-NAND ($60).

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/579184/tc-885-ur-19-hdd-upgrade

Larryodie

If you're going to make it the primary driver then after you cloned it or create new installation media. Be sure that you remove the 2nd drive until you have establish the boot drive. Then install your old drive for a data drive etc.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

Larryodie

Also note that if you do the create an installation via an USB that you have BOOT MENU ENABLED before doing an F12 to boot the USB..

bootenabled.jpg

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/687417/painful-just-tyring-to-find-a-harddriveupgrade

The TC-885 desktops M.2 slot is an M.2 (2280&2242) slot (for PCIE SSD & Intel Optane memory) as Acer doesn't specify the exact PCIe type M.2 drive that is suitable for this M.2 slot. Its more than likely a PCIe3 x2 which you can fit a PCIe3 x4 as its easier to get these days as even these Gen 3 x4 M.2 drives are getting replaced by the Gen 4 x4 M,2 drives. Try to buy a Gen 3 x2 type M.2 drive but if you can't then a Gen 3 x4 will work 100% and you can use it for a boot drive.

Btw, the M.2 PCIe M,.2 drive that you tried to fit to your laptop probably can't be made to work in a M.2 PCIe slot as its not compatible with an M.2 SATA-3 SSD drive and that is the reason why its so slow and does not work.

M.2 Drives PCIe Gen Bandwidths Speeds

billsey

Any systems marketed for Intel Optane support had to have NVMe x4 support, so the M.2 slot in the TC-885 models support x4. This is reflected in the block diagram for the TC-885 model line here:

So, you can put a SATA m.2 drive in, an NVMe x2 or an NVMe x4. A PCIe NVMe 4.0 x4 will run at the 3.0 x4 speeds though, not the faster mode the newest designs use. There are also three SATA slots on the motherboard, typically used for a single ODD and up to two HDDs/SSDs. The HDD/SSD mounting bracket on the front of the machine has holes for two 3.5" drives, you need adapters to mount a 2.5" drive:

As you can see the second drive (to right with orange holes) is aligned sideways from the first one (to the left). Depending on what drive is in the M.2 slot right now, I'd suggest getting a much larger one that would go in the same slot then clone the existing drive to the new one using your NVMe external USB case. Once the clone is complete just swap the two drives and boot from the new one. When you are comfortable that the new one is working well just put the old one in the case and repartition it as a data drive and use it for backups or something.

ttttt

@AllIwantForXmasIsSSD

As a TC-885-UA91 user, I would recommend a name brand 1 or 2 TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD. Mine came with a 500 GB WD SN520. This drive was replaced with another higher performance drive later.

To replace the NVMe SSD, see the link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Aspire+TC-885-d17e5&rlz=1C1ASUM_enUS956US956&oq=Aspire+TC-885-d17e5&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMgoIAxAAGIYDGIoFMgoIBBAAGIYDGIoF0gEJMTM2NzlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f6a36f3a,vid:pHvrLCRekGY

AllIwantForXmasIsSSD

Replaced it with a Samsung 1TB SATA SSD. No issues. Thanks all.