Buying an expansion for sister laptop

[samunars]

Hi guys, my sister's 18th birthday is coming up and we've decided to buy her a laptop (HP Pavilion x360 - 14-ba000nl) it's not the gratest but it is ok for what she needs.
Anyway, the problem is storage: it only has a 128 m.2 ssd, great for speed, not so much for quantity, So, given that we have a little spare budget, I thought of buying her a 64 or 128 gb sd (the laptop comes with a card reader in the IO).
Would you reccomend that over a external HDD? I'm asking because a friend told me that SDs are more prone to failing and reccomended an hd instead.
Thank you so much

[jgoonatilaka]

Have you looked at getting another M.2 and replacing the old one?

[Dissitesuxba11s]

External hard drive would be the most affordable option especially for longevity and connectivity to other computers. An SD card will be cheaper but you get more memory space for what you pay for with an external hard drive, and not every computer has an SD reader.

[Kyle_N]

It seems you can get a 2.5" drive (any type) and put it inside the laptop, alongside the M.2 SSD. 

 

From the service manual:

Quote

Support for hard drive and solid-state drive

Hard drive:
Support for 6.35-cm (2.5-in) hard drives in 7.2-mm and 7.0-mm (.28 in) thicknesses (all hard drives use the same bracket)
Support for Accelerometer hard drive protection
Support for 1-TB, 5400-rpm, 7.2-mm and 500-GB, 5400-rpm, 7.0-mm hard drives
Support for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA)

Solid-state drive: Support for the following solid-state drives:
For use only on computer models with model numbers 15m-bp1xx through 15-bp1xx: ● 512-GB, Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solidstate drive ● 512-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive with triple-level cell (TLC) ● 256-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive with TLC ● 128-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive with TLC
For use on all computer models: ● 512-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive with TLC ● 256-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive ● 128-GB, M.2 SATA solid-state drive
Support for M.2 SATA solid-state drive (support for storage function, port 1; not available on computer models equipped with an Intel Pentium processor)

Dual storage configurations:
1-TB, 5400-rpm, 7.2-mm hard drive with 128-GB solid-state drive with TLC
500-GB, 5400-rpm, 7.0-mm hard drive with 128-GB solid-state drive with TLC
Solid-state hard drive configurations:
1-TB, 5400-rpm, 7.2-mm solid-state hard drive with 8-GB NAND
500-GB, 5400-rpm, 7.0-mm solid-state hard drive with 8-GB NAND

 

Full manual with instructions is here: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05474219

 

The only possibly concerning part is it says "Support for M.2 SATA solid-state drive (support for storage function, port 1; not available on computer models equipped with an Intel Pentium processor)" which makes it sounds like the M.2 SATA slot can't be used with Pentium processors (which your system has). But if it ships with one then I don't see the issue. 

If it means that the chipset only supports a single SATA device though, then it won't work. I wasn't able to find any info on the chipset so I'm not sure about this. 

 

The top cover (keyboard/palmrest) lifts up after removing bottom screws, allowing access to the hard drive bay. There is a rubber sleeve that the hard drive is designed to slide into, and there is a removable cable that it plugs into the system board. If you have opened up computers before, this should be very easy. 

 

Only other thing I am not 100% sure about is whether the rubber sleeve is included, but it seems like it is, because the hard drives don't ship with it (therefore it must be included with the PC). If you are getting the PC anyways, I would check for this before going and buying a drive (if it doesn't have the sleeve, you'd technically be fine with an SSD, but it might move around. Do not try an HDD or SSHD because it will likely be damaged without the sleeve. Otherwise just get an external drive or SD card.)

[samunars]

14 hours ago, DOGC_Kyle said:

It seems you can get a 2.5" drive (any type) and put it inside the laptop, alongside the M.2 SSD

first of all thank you so much for the explanation, but just to be clear, you're saying to open up the laptop and see wether there is a 2.5 sata slot and if there is to put an ssd or a hdd (having the same connector both should work, right?) and then plan accordingly?

 

13 hours ago, DOGC_Kyle said:

Only other thing I am not 100% sure about is whether the rubber sleeve is included

Only certain way to know is opening it up and looking i guess, but if there is none, could i buy one?

 

13 hours ago, DOGC_Kyle said:

If it means that the chipset only supports a single SATA device though, then it won't work. I wasn't able to find any info on the chipset so I'm not sure about this

it ships with a gold intel Pentium 4415U, hope it's not bad news but why would they put an empty 2.5" slot with a sata cable if it is not supported? Either they put it or they don't (right?)
Thank you again very much for your time

[Kyle_N]

The space will definitely be there, but if it doesn't ship with the HDD (which your specific model doesn't), it might not have the rubber sleeve or cable. 

 

The rubber sleeve is just to protect the drive and hold it steady. SSDs have no moving parts and therefore they don't necessarily need it, but it might shake around when you move the laptop since there will be a bit of a gap around the drive. An HDD however, is far more sensitive to motion and therefore you need the rubber sleeve. 

 

The cable is obviously the more important piece, but it looks like its part of the system board so I would expect it to be included. This connects your drive to the system board. 

And yes, SSDs and HDDs use the same SATA connector, so as long as it's a 2.5" (notebook size) drive, it should work. 

 

I have no idea if you can buy the rubber sleeve or cable, they are not listed as customer-replaceable (which usually means only authorized service centers can buy them), but I'll see if they're sold separately anywhere. 

 

The last remaining issue is whether the chipset supports it.

A chipset has a limited number of SATA devices (drives) it can be connected to at the same time. Sometimes there may be more physical connectors than you can actually use at once. 

For example, this laptop has both a M.2 mSATA connector (which is used by the 128GB SSD), and a second SATA connector for plugging in any 2.5" drive. If the chipset only supports a single SATA device, you'd only be able to use one or the other.

It is possible (albeit I can find no information on this, so I do not know for sure) that the Pentium model ships with a chipset that is like that (only supporting 1 SATA device), and only the higher processors can support 2 SATA devices (Therefore you'd possibly need the higher model to plug in two internal SATA drives at the same time). 

I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with the chipset used with this Pentium processor (I believe they are integrated in the same chip), but that's the best way to get a definitive answer. Maybe make a new thread asking if the Pentium 4415U supports 2 SATA devices?

 

Either way, here is my suggestion: 

If you are already set on buying this system (or already bought it), you could open the system, check that the cable is at least there. If it is, you could buy any notebook drive (SSD or HDD), and plug it in. If it is detected, great! If not, you can buy an external enclosure (they're only like $5-$10 for a USB 3.0 one), and plug that same drive into the enclosure, turning it into an external USB 3.0 drive.

Or if the store has a return policy for hard drives, you may be able to get a refund and buy an SD card if you prefer (although most stores dont take back drives once you open the package, so check before buying). 

[NumLock21]

Did you get the laptop yet? Not yet, then consider on checking out the Envy x360 or Spectre x360. The Envy one also has the AMD Ryzen with VEGA 8 graphics.

[samunars]

16 hours ago, DOGC_Kyle said:

you could buy any notebook drive (SSD or HDD), and plug it in

Thank you very much for the help!
I'm actually buying an ssd anyway (building a pc myself this time around) so i might be able to use mine, see if it detects it and plan accordingly. I'm trying to find the rubber sleeve on amazon but nothing useful shows up. Maybe I'm using the wrong keywords, but I'm only finding 2.5" to 3.5" adapters.

[Kyle_N]

The HP part number for the rubber sleeve is 924283-001

 

HP sells the part directly but it's $22 for the rubber sleeve and another $11 for shipping. That is available here: https://parts.hp.com/hpparts/Search_Results.aspx?SearchIn=PartNumber&SearchPN=924283-001

 

I found this ebay listing for $9: https://www.ebay.com/itm/924283-001-HP-RUBBER-SLEEVE-HDD-for-Pavilion-14m-ba013dx-Notebook-/132436013090

 

Couldn't find an Amazon listing with this part number. You could try to check with computer stores near you, although this is a rather specific part so it's unlikely they'd have it. There is also HP's authorized resellers here but I'm not sure if all of them will sell to the public, and they'll likely have similar price to HP.