buying new notebook and install ssd and ram later

[72BKK]

Hi i am sorry if this topic has been already discussed but i couldn't find anything specific about this

 

I know that notebook with 8gb ram and ssd are too expensive here so i plan to buy one somewhere in bangkok (going to pantip now) and then adding ram and ssd in my country in Italy since i ll be back in a couple of months

 

I need as other specs 15.6" screen, a minimum of i3 as processor and possibly a notebook with decent battery so my idea is to find one with such features and then add ram and ssd.

 

Does it matter that the one i buy has already a Sata hard disk? Must the laptop meet any requirement in order to install ram and ssd later?

 

I am looking for a new machine and no second hand so i ll certainly buy a recent model trying to limit the final cost.

 

This solution came to mind after reading also this forum about how crazy expensive laptop are here and unreliable services assistance are as well

 

thank you in advance for any suggestion

Andrea ????

 

 

[jackdd]

Electronics (Laptops) in Thailand cost about the same as in Europe (in general, of course you might find some products cheaper in Europe, but also some cheaper in Thailand).

Price is generally no reason to buy here or there, and i also don't see any other reason (other than if you want an italian keyboard, might be difficult to find in Thailand)

 

If you plan to upgrade later you have to make sure that the Laptop allow you to change ram and SSD, not all do and might have for example ram soldered to the mainboard.

If you buy a Laptop which comes with a SSD this does usually have a pcie SSD, which means it's about 3 times as fast as an SSD that you upgrade later using SATA.

[72BKK]

2 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Electronics (Laptops) in Thailand cost about the same as in Europe, price is no reason to buy here or there, and i also don't see any other reason (other than if you want an italian keyboard, might be difficult to find in Thailand)

If you plan to upgrade later you have to make sure that the Laptop allow you to change ram and ssd, not all do and might have for example ram soldered to the mainboard.

If you buy a Laptop which comes with a SSD this does usually have a pcie SSD, which means it's about 3 times as fast as an SSD that you upgrade later using SATA.

I plan to add a 500gb ssd in order to have performance as good as the one of a pc that comes with 256gb ssd. Is that a reasonable expectation?

[wgdanson]

4 minutes ago, 72BKK said:

I plan to add a 500gb ssd in order to have performance as good as the one of a pc that comes with 256gb ssd. Is that a reasonable expectation?

The capacity of the SSD has no bearing whatsoever on the speed/performance. Possibly the make and spec of the SSD will.

If you buy one here with HDD, which is most unlikely these days, you will need time, patience and knowledge to put all the programs and data onto the SSD. IMHO, get one here, save yourself the hassle.

[72BKK]

29 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

The capacity of the SSD has no bearing whatsoever on the speed/performance. Possibly the make and spec of the SSD will.

If you buy one here with HDD, which is most unlikely these days, you will need time, patience and knowledge to put all the programs and data onto the SSD. IMHO, get one here, save yourself the hassle.

What if I buy one with 128gb ssd and I add ssd later (and ram)?

[wgdanson]

3 hours ago, 72BKK said:

What if I buy one with 128gb ssd and I add ssd later (and ram)?

You will be left with a redundant 128GB SSD, unless you buy an external USB SSD to add. As I said, the size of the SSD has no bearing on it's speed.

RAM will possibly speed things up, but if you buy a lappy with 8GB already, you will not need more unless you are doing very intensive video work.

[chrisinth]

I'm not sure what your price range is, but an option is to have a look at the Lenovo Yoga 520 or similar. This (the link below) comes with a 128GB SSD (M2 PCIE) chip and most of the Yogas still have the bay for the 2 1/2 inch HDD with the connections. Operating system & programs on the SSD, storage on the HDD (default folders mapped to HDD to allow room on the SSD and Bob's your uncle)!

 

If running Dropbox, OneDrive or any other cloud solution put the caches on the HDD, same applies to email PSTs (or equivalent) if you are using an email client.

 

My Yoga is running an i5 8th gen M2 PCIE (for OS/programs) and I have a 2TB HDD installed, runs perfect. I increased the RAM to 8 from 4 as well, so additional cost for this and the HDD. Also have touch screen, but the only drawback to your requirements is that it is a 14" screen. Example link below:

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/lenovo-yoga-notebook-520-80x800yqta-gray-i170983827-s213186061.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.17.2e6a5fb660ZRWQ&search=1 

[jackdd]

1 hour ago, chrisinth said:

My Yoga is running an i5 8th gen M2 PCIE (for OS/programs) and I have a 2TB HDD installed, runs perfect. I increased the RAM to 8 from 4 as well, so additional cost for this and the HDD. Also have touch screen, but the only drawback to your requirements is that it is a 14" screen. Example link below:

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/lenovo-yoga-notebook-520-80x800yqta-gray-i170983827-s213186061.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.17.2e6a5fb660ZRWQ&search=1 

 

Instead of this i would prefer the Lenovo Ideapad 530s, but the choice depends on your requirements:

The Ideapad 530s costs 5k more, but comes with i5 CPU, 8GB ram and 256GB ssd, so imho no need to upgrade this.

But it doesn't have a touchscreen, the ability to turn the screen completely arround or the option to add an extra HDD.

 

[KneeDeep]

8 hours ago, jackdd said:

Electronics (Laptops) in Thailand cost about the same as in Europe (in general, of course you might find some products cheaper in Europe, but also some cheaper in Thailand).

Price is generally no reason to buy here or there, and i also don't see any other reason (other than if you want an italian keyboard, might be difficult to find in Thailand)

 

If you plan to upgrade later you have to make sure that the Laptop allow you to change ram and SSD, not all do and might have for example ram soldered to the mainboard.

If you buy a Laptop which comes with a SSD this does usually have a pcie SSD, which means it's about 3 times as fast as an SSD that you upgrade later using SATA.

 

Why would you assert this? It is quite wrong.

NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive.

 

[jackdd]

47 minutes ago, KneeDeep said:

 

Why would you assert this? It is quite wrong.

NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive.

 

Quote

NVM Express (NVMe) [...] is an open logical device interface specification for accessing non-volatile storage media attached via a PCI Express (PCIe) bus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express

 

Few Laptops have it? At least all current Lenovo Laptops (Yoga, Ideapad, Thinkpad) have their SSDs connected via PCIe, as well do all current Macbooks, these two vendors alone make up quite a big portion of the total laptop market.

Actually i think it's the other way arround, which made me write "usually" in my post before.

Can you name two laptop manufacturers that use SSDs connected via Sata in their current laptops which are shipped with SSD?

 

[Pib]

1 hour ago, KneeDeep said:

 

Why would you assert this? It is quite wrong.

NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive.

 

Laptops commonly come with PCIe/NVMe SSD now...usually M.2 form factor.   Just go to say InvadeIT website and look at the many laptops....many/most come with PCIe/NVMe SSD M.2 type drives.

 

[KneeDeep]

5 hours ago, Pib said:

Laptops commonly come with PCIe/NVMe SSD now...usually M.2 form factor.   Just go to say InvadeIT website and look at the many laptops....many/most come with PCIe/NVMe SSD M.2 type drives.

 

 

M.2 bears little relation to NVMe. Putting a forward slash between them doesn't make them the same or even similar.

First of all M.2 is a Form Factor. It can be connected via SATA or PCIe.

NVMe is invariably PCIe.

[KneeDeep]

7 hours ago, jackdd said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express

 

Few Laptops have it? At least all current Lenovo Laptops (Yoga, Ideapad, Thinkpad) have their SSDs connected via PCIe, as well do all current Macbooks, these two vendors alone make up quite a big portion of the total laptop market.

Actually i think it's the other way arround, which made me write "usually" in my post before.

Can you name two laptop manufacturers that use SSDs connected via Sata in their current laptops which are shipped with SSD?

 

 

 

Ok, I'm just opening the DELL webiste and will choose the first laptop on which I click; 

 

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/sc/laptops/latitude-laptops

 

First group utilises SATA; https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/latitude-3190-for-education/spd/latitude-11-3190-laptop

 

Will choose another group; https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-notebooks-and-2-in-1-laptops/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop

 

All with HDD, but with the option of NVMe.

 

Ok, I'll go along with one of your choices, Lenovo. Let's try ThinkPad; https://www.lenovo.com/th/th/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-l-series/ThinkPad-L580/p/22TP2TBL580 Mid-range model.

 

This one states PCIe connection.

 

So far it seems that most are not supplied with fast NVMe. 

 

Next, let's go to a popular sales site; https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/product_list/3/121

 

Picked ASUS at random. Picked a device at random; https://www.jib.co.th/web/product/readProduct/32661/121/NOTEBOOK--โน้ตบุ๊ค--ASUS-VIVOBOOK-S530FN-BQ102T--FIRMAMENT-GREEN-

 

SATA.

 

...and there we have it. Most devices are not supplied with NVMe SSD.

 

But as you say, they are becoming more prevalent. But not at the lower end of the market.

 

 

 

 

[Ks45672]

There are  laptops sold with both sata + nvme slots but budget  machines might not be able to utilise the full speed due to limited pcie lanes so its worth checking before you buy if that's important to you

 

A Good sata ssd like the Samsung evo 860 will boot windows 10 almost as fast as an m2 drive but  m2 pulls ahead in loading games and large file transfers etc 

 

 

[jackdd]

5 hours ago, KneeDeep said:

...and there we have it. Most devices are not supplied with NVMe SSD.

Out of your 4 example models, 3 come with HDD but can be reconfigured to an SSD, in this case it's not really surprising that this is then a SATA SSD.

Maybe i was not really clear and should have said "which are shipped with SSD in their basic configuration".

 

But to end this discussion, here a website which allows me to filter for this:

https://geizhals.de/?cat=nb&xf=3310_2018

Number of Laptop models sold on the German market since 2018: 2884

Number of Laptops using an M.2 SSD: 2017

Number of Laptops with an SATA SSD: 543

 

You are wrong. Most current Laptops have a M.2 (NVMe, PCIe, however you want to call it) SSD

[Pib]

6 hours ago, KneeDeep said:

M.2 bears little relation to NVMe. Putting a forward slash between them doesn't make them the same or even similar.

First of all M.2 is a Form Factor. It can be connected via SATA or PCIe.

NVMe is invariably PCIe.

All true.  PCI is an interface standard and NVMe is a protocol specifically designed for SSD storage connected to a PCIe interface.   NVMe replaces the old ACHI protocol used on a slower SATA interface. 

 

But where you said earlier...

14 hours ago, KneeDeep said:

NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive.

 

...is incorrect as I stated earlier and provided a link to InvadeIT showing many/most laptops are now sold with a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD installed from the factory.   And there are plenty which come with dual drives installed such as a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD "along with" a 2.5" hard drive (spinning platter type) or 2.5" SATA SSD.   When I visit computer stories here in Thailand such as ITCity and BananaIT laptops with M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs installed are plentiful.  And no doubt if you are talking about laptop models/configurations sold in some other countries then M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD may be less prevalent for some countries. 

 

But yes, there are also models sold with a 2.5" drive "only" but unless they are a older/pretty cheap model they usually also have a M.2 PCIe NVMe capability/empty slot for those folks who want to pay a little less for the laptop....happy enough with a SATA-type drive.  Or those folks who do not want the "factory installed/OEM" M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and prefer to buy/install their own M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD like maybe one of the faster PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD drives such as the Samsung 970 PCIe NVMe---I would fit into this category of customer.

 

Plus some laptops come with M.2 connector supporting PCIe or SATA devices as there are still M.2 form factor SATA devices/SSDs in the market place/in use by customers.   

 

  

[KneeDeep]

5 hours ago, jackdd said:

Out of your 4 example models, 3 come with HDD but can be reconfigured to an SSD, in this case it's not really surprising that this is then a SATA SSD.

Maybe i was not really clear and should have said "which are shipped with SSD in their basic configuration".

 

But to end this discussion, here a website which allows me to filter for this:

https://geizhals.de/?cat=nb&xf=3310_2018

Number of Laptop models sold on the German market since 2018: 2884

Number of Laptops using an M.2 SSD: 2017

Number of Laptops with an SATA SSD: 543

 

You are wrong. Most current Laptops have a M.2 (NVMe, PCIe, however you want to call it) SSD

 

Nope, you are wrong. The DELL can be reconfigured with NVMe, not SATA. But most of the range comes with HDD.

That doesn't mean that you cannot fit your own NVMe module.

 

Not all M.2 SSD are PCIe. Look at the prices of the laptops. Some as much as 2000 euros. 

 

Use a more typical price of say 500 euros. I'm sure the OP isn't looking to spend 80000 baht.

 

Look at the lower end of the market and use a UK/US or even Thailand website. We like English here. I can't see the filter for PCIe on your site.

 

 

[KneeDeep]

4 hours ago, Pib said:

All true.  PCI is an interface standard and NVMe is a protocol specifically designed for SSD storage connected to a PCIe interface.   NVMe replaces the old ACHI protocol used on a slower SATA interface. 

 

But where you said earlier...

...is incorrect as I stated earlier and provided a link to InvadeIT showing many/most laptops are now sold with a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD installed from the factory.   And there are plenty which come with dual drives installed such as a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD "along with" a 2.5" hard drive (spinning platter type) or 2.5" SATA SSD.   When I visit computer stories here in Thailand such as ITCity and BananaIT laptops with M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs installed are plentiful.  And no doubt if you are talking about laptop models/configurations sold in some other countries then M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD may be less prevalent for some countries. 

 

But yes, there are also models sold with a 2.5" drive "only" but unless they are a older/pretty cheap model they usually also have a M.2 PCIe NVMe capability/empty slot for those folks who want to pay a little less for the laptop....happy enough with a SATA-type drive.  Or those folks who do not want the "factory installed/OEM" M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and prefer to buy/install their own M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD like maybe one of the faster PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD drives such as the Samsung 970 PCIe NVMe---I would fit into this category of customer.

 

Plus some laptops come with M.2 connector supporting PCIe or SATA devices as there are still M.2 form factor SATA devices/SSDs in the market place/in use by customers.   

 

  

 

Invade IT doesn't have a filter for PCIe. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Bear in mind the title of this thread. We are not writing about top of the range here. So the discussion has taken on a rather silly aspect.

 

Filter by lowest price; https://www.invadeit.co.th/category/notebooks-laptops/sort/price/asc/

 

Show me the PCIe option there. First one with SSD is SATA; https://www.invadeit.co.th/product/notebooks-laptops/lenovo/ideapad-s130-14igm-81j20013ta-mineral-grey-p040458/

 

So whilst I agree having PCIe option is desirable, it is not a given that the OP will find one at his price level. Which you will agree is the whole point of this thread. Otherwise he wouldn't be thinking of fitting his own.

 

Either way, a PCIe connection is a good idea if one can be found within budget.

 

 

[Pib]

 

Invade IT doesn't have a filter for PCIe. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Bear in mind the title of this thread. We are not writing about top of the range here. So the discussion has taken on a rather silly aspect.

 

Filter by lowest price; https://www.invadeit.co.th/category/notebooks-laptops/sort/price/asc/

 

Show me the PCIe option there. First one with SSD is SATA; https://www.invadeit.co.th/product/notebooks-laptops/lenovo/ideapad-s130-14igm-81j20013ta-mineral-grey-p040458/

 

So whilst I agree having PCIe option is desirable, it is not a given that the OP will find one at his price level. Which you will agree is the whole point of this thread. Otherwise he wouldn't be thinking of fitting his own.

 

Either way, a PCIe connection is a good idea if one can be found within budget.

 

 

Usually just looking at the invadeit brief couple line/short paragraph summary on each of their laptops reflects the drive(s) configuration. And they show multiple laptops per page. Clicking the specs shows detail. But it's easy to see quickly the majority come with M.2 PCIe NVMe.

 

Now a year or two ago it was different....the majority were still coming with only a hard drive installed. Kinda like how a year or two ago the majority came without Windows installed from the factory; now the majority do.

 

I would definitely recommend getting a laptop with PCIe drive capability as the added cost is not much nowdays. Personally I would not buy any laptop nowdays that didn't have PCIe drive capability.

[jackdd]

36 minutes ago, KneeDeep said:

Look at the lower end of the market and use a UK/US or even Thailand website. We like English here.

Feel free to post a link to another website which offers a functionality and data base like this one, i'm quite sure you can understand the data on this website because luckily words like SSD, SATA, PCIe and so on are the same in German ????

 

I wrote: "If you buy a Laptop which comes with a SSD this does usually have a pcie SSD, which means it's about 3 times as fast as an SSD that you upgrade later using SATA."

You wrote: "NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive. "

Then i showed you a source where you can see that actually most new Laptops come with an M.2 PCIe SSD and that you are wrong and then you start claiming other stuff like this is because of all these expensive laptops (which still doesn't make what i said at first wrong)

I just filtered it by price, range 0 - 1000 Euro which have an SSD released since 2018

Number of Laptops:

2.5" (42)

M.2 SATA (256)

M.2 PCIe (465)

So as we can see, also when looking at Laptops under 1000 Euro, most Laptops come with a PCIe SSD.

So what i said is true, what you said is wrong ????

[KneeDeep]

2 minutes ago, Pib said:

Usually just looking at the invadeit brief couple line/short paragraph summary on each of their laptops reflects the drive(s) configuration. And they show multiple laptops per page. Clicking the specs shows detail. But it's easy to see quickly the majority come with M.2 PCIe NVMe.

Now a year or two ago it was different....the majority were still coming with only a hard drive installed. Kinda like how a year or two ago the majority came without Windows installed from the factory; now the majority do.

 

Did you click on the link via price or not?

[KneeDeep]

5 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Feel free to post a link to another website which offers a functionality like this one, i'm quite sure you can understand the data on this website because luckily words like SSD, SATA, PCIe and so on are the same in German ????

 

I wrote: "If you buy a Laptop which comes with a SSD this does usually have a pcie SSD, which means it's about 3 times as fast as an SSD that you upgrade later using SATA."

You wrote: "NVMe is to what you are referring and very few laptops will be supplied with this type of drive. "

Then i showed you a source where you can see that actually most new Laptops come with an M.2 PCIe SSD and that you are wrong and then you start claiming other stuff like this is because of all these expensive laptops (which still doesn't make what i said it first wrong)

I just filtered it by price, range 0 - 1000 Euro which have an SSD released since 2018

Number of Laptops:

2.5" (42)

M.2 SATA (256)

M.2 PCIe (465)

So as we can see, also when looking at Laptops under 1000 Euro, most Laptops come with a PCIe SSD.

So what i said is true, what you said is wrong ????

 

Under 1000 euros?? Do you think 40000 baht is the budget of the OP?

 

Please...stop writing nonsense. 

 

Filter with a likely budget.

 

Utter nonsense to allow laptops costing thousands of euros, when they have no connection to this thread at all.

 

Ask the OP his budget and then come back to post something sensible.

[jackdd]

4 minutes ago, KneeDeep said:

 

Under 1000 euros?? Do you think 40000 baht is the budget of the OP? 

 

Please...stop writing nonsense. 

 

Filter with a likely budget.

 

Utter nonsense to allow laptops costing thousands of euros, when they have no connection to this thread at all.

  

Ask the OP his budget and then come back to post something sensible. 

OP didn't specify a budget. 1000 Euro is not even 37k THB. And this is the maximum, on the other side of the spectrum there are Laptops for 7000 THB which OP probably also doesn't consider

You can stop trolling now.

[KneeDeep]

1 minute ago, jackdd said:

OP didn't specify a budget. 1000 Euro is not even 37k THB. And this is the maximum, on the other side of the spectrum there are Laptops for 7000 THB which OP probably also doesn't consider

You can stop trolling now.

 

Allow me....

 

Quote

I know that notebook with 8gb ram and ssd are too expensive here so i plan to buy one somewhere in bangkok (going to pantip now) and then adding ram and ssd in my country in Italy since i ll be back in a couple of months

 

I need as other specs 15.6" screen, a minimum of i3 as processor and possibly a notebook with decent battery so my idea is to find one with such features and then add ram and ssd

 

 

Does that look like a 37k purchase to you? Try to use your intelligence instead of posting random nonsense.

[scorecard]

21 hours ago, jackdd said:

 

Instead of this i would prefer the Lenovo Ideapad 530s, but the choice depends on your requirements:

The Ideapad 530s costs 5k more, but comes with i5 CPU, 8GB ram and 256GB ssd, so imho no need to upgrade this.

But it doesn't have a touchscreen, the ability to turn the screen completely arround or the option to add an extra HDD.

 

 

I bought a Lenovo Yoga about 2 years ago with touchscreen. Often and suddenly many files / program sections would suddenly appear all over my screen, control of the mouse gone and files I was working on all disappeared regardless of already having file names or not.

 

Several repair shops said it has to be a virus but they couldn't find a virus.

 

By accident I found a community webboard about Lenovo problems, and someone had posted that it's a problem with the touchscreen and listed step by step how to stop it - effectively disconnecting the touchscreen processes.

 

I followed the steps listed and problem instantly totally fixed. Checking further into the same posting on the community board two other Lenovo users mentioned same problem and same fix.

 

 

[jackdd]

2 minutes ago, KneeDeep said:

 

Allow me....

Does that look like a 37k purchase to you? Try to use your intelligence instead of posting random nonsense. 

What do you think is OPs budget?

[KneeDeep]

Before jackdd comes back with more silliness, I will remind that there was a similar thread not so long ago;

 

So if a laptop of similar spec requested by the OP is available for 20k, then we can assume that he is not looking to spend more than 20k.

 

At least one of us is actually sticking to the brief, rather than posting links to laptops costing thousands of Euros in order to try to prove a point.

 

 

[wgdanson]

23 hours ago, chrisinth said:

I'm not sure what your price range is, but an option is to have a look at the Lenovo Yoga 520 or similar. This (the link below) comes with a 128GB SSD (M2 PCIE) chip and most of the Yogas still have the bay for the 2 1/2 inch HDD with the connections. Operating system & programs on the SSD, storage on the HDD (default folders mapped to HDD to allow room on the SSD and Bob's your uncle)!

 

If running Dropbox, OneDrive or any other cloud solution put the caches on the HDD, same applies to email PSTs (or equivalent) if you are using an email client.

 

My Yoga is running an i5 8th gen M2 PCIE (for OS/programs) and I have a 2TB HDD installed, runs perfect. I increased the RAM to 8 from 4 as well, so additional cost for this and the HDD. Also have touch screen, but the only drawback to your requirements is that it is a 14" screen. Example link below:

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/lenovo-yoga-notebook-520-80x800yqta-gray-i170983827-s213186061.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.17.2e6a5fb660ZRWQ&search=1 

You could of course fit an SSD, as opposed to a HDD, in the other slot, whatever size you think you will need to store your data. 

You can put your One Drive or Google Drive folder wherever you want

[jackdd]

4 minutes ago, KneeDeep said:

Before jackdd comes back with more silliness, I will remind that there was a similar thread not so long ago;

 

So if a laptop of similar spec requested by the OP is available for 20k, then we can assume that he is not looking to spend more than 20k.

 

At least one of us is actually sticking to the brief, rather than posting links to laptops costing thousands of Euros in order to try to prove a point.

 

 

This is another OP

[KneeDeep]

1 minute ago, jackdd said:

This is another OP

 

Indeed, but you will note that this OP has posted on that thread too. So he is aware on it. Same country too.

 

Anyway, let's leave it there, as it's clear that we are both trying to help and the PCIe information is useful. Your only mistake was to overlook the likely budget.