Optane Memory Removal

[Kevin-Waldron]

I would like to remove my 16 gb Optane memory stick and put an M.2 PCLe ssd in its place. Is this doable? If so, what are the steps involved? I have an ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 N580GD and I would like to swap optane for a Samsung 970 Evo 500gb NVMe M.2 SSD Part Number: MZ-V7E500BW

[n_scott_pearson · Accepted solution]

Steps,

1. Disable Optane Module so HDD is standalone.
2. Shutdown.
3. Remove Optane Module.
4. Install M.2 NVMe SSD in its place.
5. Power on. 
6. Install Windows 10 in UEFI mode to the NVMe SSD.

Note: You cannot clone the Windows 10 image from the HDD to the SSD unless it was installed in UEFI mode. If it was installed in Legacy Mode, it will not have support for working with NVMe drives.

Hope this helps (very terse description),

...S

[Kevin-Waldron]

Thank you for the reply.

I was planning on using Samsung Migrate to do the cloning process. In my system information it says BIOS Mode is UEFI, so am I correct in assuming I can go into BIOS and change the SATA mode to AHCI from optane before I plug in the ssd then initialize the disk in disk manager and simply clone using Samsung Migrate?

[n_scott_pearson]

Yes, cloning should work if UEFI.

Yes, you should restore it to AHCI (sorry, this should have been step in algorithm).

...S

[Kevin-Waldron]

Thank you that helps a lot. 

I tried doing this with a 1tb M.2 SATA SSD but It would not show up in disk management. I understood this to be an issue of the SSD being too big for my motherboard so I returned it and decided to do more research first. I also wasn't certain that the SATA SSD would work in the Optane port or not?

[n_scott_pearson]

It simply depends upon the board design. Some support NVMe+SATA and some only support NVMe.

...S