Asus Laptop X200CA HHD to SSD upgrade

Dave Van Ronk

I wish to upgrade to a SSD and it currently has a Seagate ST500LT012 2.5 inch 500GB Momentus Thin Hard Drive. Is it possible to upgrade to a m.2 SSD? If not, how do I know which SSD's are the thin or slim models?
Any recommendadtions for a 280Gb SSD?



Cheers

you'll need a 2.5 inch sata ssd to replace the spinning hdd

like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lexar-NS100-2-5-SATA-256GB/dp/B07TNQXQ6N/ref=sr_1_6?crid=217U9M5XSNKGL&dchild=1&keywords=256gb+ssd+2.5&qid=1607375808&quartzVehicle=112-1489&replacementKeywords=256gb+ssd&sprefix=256gb+ssd%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-6

it won't take an m.2 form factor

mind you the 2013 celeron 1007u cpu in that laptop very out-of-date and under-powered I'm not sure that I would really bother tbh

then you'll need to create a windows bootbable usb stick (download windows iso and google the rest) and set usb to bootable in your bios to install windows on the new ssd (to allow access on boot to the usb stick)

Dave Van Ronk

Thanks Glasso.

How did you know that an m.2 would not be compatible? I thought that if I put an m.2 in a 7mm enclosure case, it might work. Is it that the cpu is incompatible?

Yeah i know the cpu is only 1.5GHz, but it's really portable and great as a 2nd travel laptop. The HDD was a bottleneck.

Yeah i've got the bootable windows usb ready to go.

Thanks again!

Cheers

you're replacing a 2.5 inch HDD drive

so you'll replace it with a 2.5 inch sata SSD

no need for enclosures as the perfect form factor exists already

besides it would be more expensive to buy an m.2 (sata) and then to buy a m.2 enclosure for it

2.5 inch sata ssds are cheaper than the equivalent m.2 sata ssds, even before buying an enclosure for an extra £10

it would be like buying a micro sd card, putting it inside an sd card adaptor for something that takes an sd card so why not just get the sd card straight off

Dave Van Ronk

Ok, I thought that the m.2's were superior in performance to the 2.5" SSD's. I can see now that I was incorrect.

Cheers Glasso!

m.2 is a form factor of ssd

you can have sata m.2 types or nvme m.2 connection types

nvme is faster and more expensive but would not work in your laptop which can only use sata and in a 2.5 inch form factor