Single sided 4TB NVME ssd?

[Lapsio]

So I was recently building workstation with couple of FireCuda 530 4TB ssd's and I though golly gosh they're so nice, I'm gonna buy one for my laptop as well!

 

And I did.

 

And now I'm sad.

 

 

Jokes aside - I'm looking for 4TB ssd for this laptop and I somehow I didn't even know it's legal (according to standard) to make motherboard in such way that you can only fit single sided ssd here. It seems retarded af, especially considering it's not even thin laptop like, excuse me wtf Lenovo this RAM slot is well within height spec for double sided M.2 so what gives...

 

So my question is - are there (reasonable) single sided 4TB m.2 ssds? By reasonable I mean not some QLC trash. Alternatively I'd accept under certain conditions some reasonably questionable ghetto solutions like some m.2 ribbons that would allow me to squeeze double sided m.2 with not too much of bending and drilling...

[leclod]

Isn't QLC to TLC what TLC was to MLC...

Sorry, my OS drive is QLC, I like it (was cheap).

 

You could be thankfull, there's an available M.2 slot

WD Black SN850X might be it

[Lapsio]

6 hours ago, leclod said:

Isn't QLC to TLC what TLC was to MLC...

Sorry, my OS drive is QLC, I like it (was cheap).

 

You could be thankfull, there's an available M.2 slot

WD Black SN850X might be it

Yeah but that's mostly why I specifically went with FireCuda 530. It has crazy SLC cache and sustained write performance which is main reason why TLC were "bad". I was using MLC as long as it was available which last time I remember was early version of 980 PRO? something like that.

 

I see mixed info online. Some people say 850x is single sided, some say it's double sided in 4TB version... kinda sus

 

That said I see some chads who managed to install double sided sn850x in this particular laptop after removing thermal pad so it might be just a little bit thinner comparing to 530. Maybe thinner dies or thinner soldering.

[Lapsio]

So I'd like to report that SN850X is NOT in fact single sided, BUT it's made in a way that on bottom side all components are moved to the back of pcb with thickest (nand) moved to the very end of pcb. This way it is in fact possible to install it into single-side only m.2 slot as long as you don't fully screw it to the board (or use some form of washer).

 

Drive works fine and performs within expectations. I had to remove thermal pad tho so it's a bit toasty under prolonged load. However it's laptop anyways so it doesn't typically experience prolonged load on ssd.

[leclod]

1 hour ago, Lapsio said:

So I'd like to report that SN850X is NOT in fact single sided,

4TB was a lot to fit on one side.

Here I found the info https://nascompares.com/review/wd-black-sn850x-ssd-review-testing/

(Sorry, too late)

[Lapsio]

I decided to install washers since I realized that loose screw could fall off any moment from vibrations and that could probably be quite fatal to laptop. So using that opportunity I took some photos for anyone interested in this drive for his ultra-thin notebook.

 

Installed drive in single-side only m.2 slot:

 

As you can see there's barely any bend and unlike FireCuda it lies almost flat even when unscrewed. And bottom side of SN850X in 4TB variant:

 

tags for google: sn850x 4tb single-sided double-sided m.2 nvme ssd.