Can I add a sata drive 2.5 to my Aspire A315-44P-R7GS laptop? No SATA cable seen. Need help

A31544P
A31544P Member Posts: 2 New User
edited January 10 in Aspire Laptops

I opened up the laptop to check what rank my ram was. Its 16gb 1Rx8 and I noticed no sata cable to add a drive in the free space.

I do not see anywhere to add a sata drive. I can only add another m.2 2280 ssd.

Is this correct? Does anyone have suggestions I could do so I can add a 2.5 sata drive?

Best Answer

  • Alejandro_AC
    Alejandro_AC ACE Posts: 13,813 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Hi @A31544P I can't find the A315-44P, only the A315-44 and this one does have a space for an HDD, I suppose the difference between 44P and 44 consists of that.

    All the best.

    • Un saludo / All the best
    • Haga clic en "Me gusta" si mi respuesta fue útil o márquela como solución si se resolvió, ¡gracias!
    • Colaborador pro bono, no trabajo ni hablo en nombre de Acer
    • Please click "Like" if my answer was helpful or mark it as solution if it was solved, thanks!
    • Pro bono contributor, I do not work or speak on behalf of Acer
    • MVP de MSFT (2003-21) & Windows Insider & (alezmvp)

Answers

  • Alejandro_AC
    Alejandro_AC ACE Posts: 13,813 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Hi @A31544P I can't find the A315-44P, only the A315-44 and this one does have a space for an HDD, I suppose the difference between 44P and 44 consists of that.

    All the best.

    • Un saludo / All the best
    • Haga clic en "Me gusta" si mi respuesta fue útil o márquela como solución si se resolvió, ¡gracias!
    • Colaborador pro bono, no trabajo ni hablo en nombre de Acer
    • Please click "Like" if my answer was helpful or mark it as solution if it was solved, thanks!
    • Pro bono contributor, I do not work or speak on behalf of Acer
    • MVP de MSFT (2003-21) & Windows Insider & (alezmvp)
  • A31544P
    A31544P Member Posts: 2 New User

    thank you, did you find that information on Cdn.net?

    Im also trying to find info on the oem kingston drive. ill look on cdn

  • Andrepartthree
    Andrepartthree Member Posts: 25 Networker

    Hi there :) .. OP I know you asked this way back in June 2024 but your question does come up when I do a google search for this particular laptop model so I thought I'd comment on my experiences with this laptop in case someone else is google searching with the same question.

    It looks like you're definitely correct as are the persons who replied to your question in that oddly enough despite there being a blank open space complete with screws that someone could screw a 2.5 form factor hard drive into, there's no sata cable included on the motherboard to let you connect said 2.5 drive which is kind of strange! My best guess is that it was just cheaper for acer to leave the manufacturing process virtually identical for the "P" and "non-P" versions of this laptop and to just not bother including a sata cable to let you plug a 2.5 ssd drive in there too.

    I found this acer forum thread interesting regarding the aspire 3 a315 44 (cousin to but not the same as A315-44P apparently :) )

    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/703120/is-acer-aspire-3-a315-44-upgradable-and-what-parts-can-i-upgrade

    when you look at the youtube video linked in there at the 3 minute 55 second mark and at the 6 minute mark I notice looking at the m2 drive that there's only the one m2 drive slot which is apparently already occupied with the m2 "C/windows" drive I'm guessing that laptop ships with, but there's a blank space and port for a 2.5 ssd drive .. at around the 7 minute 55 second mark in the video you can see the 2.5 ssd drive sata cable port included in the aspire 3 a315 44 model …

    If this helps any I plugged in a "SK hynix Gold P31 M2 SSD 1TB, M.2 2280 NVME PCIe Gen3.0 " m2 drive into my A315-44P-R7GS laptop which is working fine so far (it's been plugged in there for all of 4 days maybe :P but so far so good :) ) .. apparently 1 TB is the biggest size hard drive you can plug in there anyways as per

    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/706467/update-acer-aspire-a315-44p-r7gs-hardware-need-to-know-whether-i-can-add-another-ram

    And this was probably to be expected I know, but the vacant m2 drive slot I plugged the SK hynix drive into (I just left the other m2 drive slot alone that comes already populated with the 512 GB drive that serves as the C/Windows drive) already has a screw in there you can unscrew and then screw back in to anchor your second m2 drive in place.

    I also plugged a "Crucial RAM 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CL22 (or 2933MHz or 2666MHz) Laptop Memory CT16G4SFRA32A" (that last number ending with A is the model number) into the laptop that's working fine, the laptop ran noticeably faster in my opinion after the ram upgrade.

    What I particularly liked is that there's no soldered ram in there :) ... I just plugged my crucial ram stick into the empty ram slot bay that was vacant in the laptop but the 16 GB stick of ram that the laptop ships with can be removed if necessary if you wanted to say buy two sticks of the crucial ram I mentioned above if you're paranoid and want to make sure the exact same ram sticks are in both slots .. based on my experience though that's not necessary just buying say the crucial ram stick I got and plugging it in there will work fine. Besides give the ram limit is 32 GB might as well just buy the one 16 GB ram stick, plug it in and leave it at that.

    I did find that the "Blue Triangle Spudger Tool" (really just a plastic guitar pick) linked in the youtube video I mentioned above works great as far as prying open the laptop.

    See also

    https://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/Document/Lifecycle%20Ext.%20Guide/Lifecycle%20Ext.%20Guide_Acer_1.0_A_A.pdf?acerid=638320937264967874&Step1=&Step2=&Step3=ASPIRE%20A315-44P&OS=ALL&LC=en&BC=ACER&SC=PA_6

    which to me is a big help far as the upgrades..while that document is geared more towards dissasembling the laptop it has a lot of useful into in there far as the ram and hard drive upgrades.

  • Andrepartthree
    Andrepartthree Member Posts: 25 Networker

    Here's a link to that youtube video I keep talking about too :) .. the youtuber is great, very detailed and gives a lot of info when he's doing upgrades to laptops

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdrglHVz3g4&t=726s