My laptop has a standard 1tb ssd for storage and I want to get a 1tb a2000 to boot and for programs.
Question, if I remove the nvme and install the new drive (easy), will I need to have a copy of windows on a USB key to boot from in order to initialise and format the new 1tb nvme? I don't have an enclosure to do this before the swap. Am I overthinking this?
How do people replace their NVME boot drives?
It must be easy but I don't want to screw it up!
Thanks, good to know I can boot from a USB bootable media and use that to format the nvme and then install Win 10 as a fresh install on it. as easy as a sata ssd then!
Alternatively, get an enclosure and use the Acronis imaging software that comes with the drive to migrate your data across. This way you won't have to do any re-installing.
Thanks. I tried macrium reflect with my old one to see if i could keep my office 2019 licenses without having to reinstall it, but it won't boot from the sata ssd only the nvm.
I don't mind a fresh install (I can get all the drivers from the manufacturers page), just need to make sure I can find the windows 10 activation code using the cmd prompt before i take the drive out!
Normally the windows licence is embedded in the BIOS now - so you don't have to worry about retrieving it beforehand.
Good opportunity to perform a fresh install and get rid of all that unnecessary shite.
on another note, will the a2000 1tb be a reasonable boot drive for the money? the laptop isn't a powerhouse so I won't need a pcie4.0 drive as the laptop wouldn't benefit and neither would i!
I've been using one as my boot drive for the past 6 months and its worked fine for me.
Make a recovery USB using Windows and a Windows installation USB - you should have these as disaster recovery.
I would make an image of the existing disk onto other storage such as a USB drive. A good program to do this is Clonezilla.
Then replace the SSD without wiping the existing SSD. Then write the image onto the new disk.
This way you can have everything the same and you still have the existing disk in case anything doesn't work.
Some of the NVMe drives supplied with laptops are cheapies with only two PCIe lanes. Just about every retail drive of this type has 4 PCIe lanes so there is a possibility of an immediate performance improvement. As someone else noted, a drive with PCIe version 3 is adequate. A version 4 is overkill.
Next question, is amazon at $134 the cheapest place to buy an a2000?!
and is it worth it over crucial p1 or p2?
Yes, A2000 is great value for money. Definitely worth the few dollars extra over Crucial P1 or P2. Alternatively WD SN550 is another great value NVMe drive which doesn't compromise quality
You'll need to reinstall windows on the new drive. Windows 10 Installation USB drive would be the easiest option.
Instructions and download from Microsoft here