Hi All.
I know these questions are likely covered in the previous pages, though i'd prefer to get the answers now, order the parts, then read this whole thread.
I became a new owner very recently, completely unaware of the lack of M2 drive onboard - It's just become so ingrained in everything i own, that i never expected a fullsize laptop to not have one... It does somewhat explain the low price, i got a reasonably well specced machine at, but honestly i don't know if stepping backwards in storage technology is something that i can stomach.
What method has come out on top in terms of providing as much bandwidth as possible? (and what is the limitation?)
Just before we dig in - There's three pressure "pads" on the inside of the laptop undercarriage. Can anyone tell me if these are meant to be padding/damping points/pads, or whether they were once intended to be thermal transfer points from the chassis to the wide surface area of the baseplate? I cleaned them away and i have my suspicions, but i wish to be sure. I cleaned out the radiators and pulled apart the fans when i got it, but i didn't repace any thermals yet, as there's this last job which seems like it might be a total strip down.
I know little about ExpressCards - This was how the thread opened, but eBay shows a numer of EC - USB3 ports, which gives me a glimmer of hope - theoretically operating at 5gbps+, but i don't see the EC being USB3.2 Gen 2x2 (20gbps) overall, giving the full throughput of 4 lanes of PCIe3 as M2 is capable.
There's mSATA (too slow, essentially USB2.0), and there's the WiFi slot - Likely using PCIe A & E - Would be my first choice if i chould live without WiFi/BT. Then there's the the 1/2 Height mPCI slot, likely a type A slot. The final, drastic measure is to remove the nVidia GPU and connect via the MXM (which to me doesn't actually bother me too much, as the only GPU i've owned in the last 10yr is a GT710 PCIe x1 card - for when you get caught without iGPU on a homeserver. It's served me faithfully, fits anywhere, runs on anything and gives me 3 display output types).
So, before i banish my GPU to the e-cyclers, what throughput does the ExpressCard provide? (5gbps duplex as i'd imagined?) Has booting from this storage been resolved at all?
Next step would be, sacrifice internal WiFi and make use of the A&E slot (1 PCIe lane... 2.5gbps duplex in theory) - Anyone been down this path? Did this exceed base USB3.0 speed or was the difference negligible?
miniPCIe, also single lane....
Last, and step i'm happy to take, as it will reduce the power consumption, and heat output of the laptop overall, and no actual loss to me - Remove the nVidia GPU and unlock proper, full potential NVMe - TRIM, SMART, should also be bootable... Who has taken it this far? This is likely where ill actually start... It's only benefits for me, as the GPU is of little use - iGPU can provide me enough!
Whilst it's entirely possible to get 8x SSD drives, without touching USB or eSATA, entirely internal
B+M key SSD to 2.5" SATA (#2)
optical 2.5" adapter (#4)
WWAN mSATA 2 M2 (#5)
(WiFi Slot) A+E Key 2 M2 (#6)
miniPCIe 2 M2 (#7)
MXM to M2 (#8)
Most of these wont be extraordinarily fast.
It's merely displaying that there are many ways to go about it, depending upon your needs. Like most, I'm not interested in migrating my fileserver to my notebook.
Last i heard. Brocade had produced an enterprise backplane which addressed 30/32 NVMe drives... I also imagine this would have been quite large for practicality sake, but realistically 240TB high speed, low power would take up less volume than a new mobile phone box! Times are a changing.... Again!
