M.2 - drive

lifeguardsm

Active member
i know this is probably a stupid question but beginning of the week you could get 512GB M.2 now u can only get 128GB - that is a huge difference. IS PCS not doing it anymore or is there something else???
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I could be adding 2 and 2 together here and getting 25 but there is a more modern version of the Samsung drive, model code SM961. It's entirely possible that they have deliberately depleted their stocks of the 951 drives in order to replace them with the more modern equivalent (Unbelievably they are even better drives again).

However, that may not be the case. Every single build I post up I recommend the 512GB 951 so it's possible that everyone has taken my advice and torn through the stock :D
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I could be adding 2 and 2 together here and getting 25 but there is a more modern version of the Samsung drive, model code SM961. It's entirely possible that they have deliberately depleted their stocks of the 951 drives in order to replace them with the more modern equivalent (Unbelievably they are even better drives again).

However, that may not be the case. Every single build I post up I recommend the 512GB 951 so it's possible that everyone has taken my advice and torn through the stock :D

There's one of those in my current build, I'll have to wait and see what happens when it gets into building..... :surrender:
 
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Monkey

Member
I too am looking for the 512 gb m.2 drive. I'd saved a quote and logged on to go buy a defiance III but it's not in my list anymore. How is the best way to get info. Am I best phoning pcspecialist, webchat or by email?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I too am looking for the 512 gb m.2 drive. I'd saved a quote and logged on to go buy a defiance III but it's not in my list anymore. How is the best way to get info. Am I best phoning pcspecialist, webchat or by email?

Phone or webchat is the best, email takes 3 days for a response.
 

dogbot

Bright Spark
There's one of those in my current build, I'll have to wait and see what happens when it get's into building..... :surrender:

Another build already? Must be salt water corrosion or you dropped it into the bilges.

I'm looking forward to another 3 1/2 trouble free years. BTW I did subsequently add a 250 GB m2 (not PCS). Handy for dual booting and leaves other drives free for data.
 

Monkey

Member
Spoke to a guy on webchat and he said that they are currently not supplying m.2 NVMe drives over 128gb just now as they can't get a reliable supplier for them. They wouldn't give me any eta. It's a real pain as it's preventing me from buying the laptop.

Anyone got any suggestions on what to do? I was considering buying it without hard drives, buying them, then installing them myself but it might turn into a pain in the arse with driver problems. I read someone had problems installing windows on new hard drives with this clevo chassis but they could be just not very good at these things.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
There's a fairly simple solution, if you can follow what I'm thinking about here then I'm fairly certain you'll find it straight forward....

Order your laptop with a conventional mechanical drive. Once you receive it, check it.... make sure the drivers are all working OK (People are receiving the laptops in rough working order from various sources regardless of pre-installation), run some benches and generally just check it out. Once you are satisfied create an entire backup of the drive. There are various options for this, Windows has a built in one if you are familiar with it. One that I would recommend is Macrium Reflect (It's free).

You can probably do a direct clone with both the drives plugged in, if not then simply load the image onto your new M2 drive and you're away. Set the boot options from the BIOS to boot from the M2, wipe the mechanical drive and you're good to go.

One small step that I would personally do as a belt and braces approach would be to remove the mechanical drive and check everything was OK. The last thing you want is to think you are booting from the M2 drive when it's actually the mechanical one. It's unlikely that you would be able to wipe your drive while using it but that's not to say you couldn't cause issues :D
 

Lez501

Gold Level Poster
I was considering buying it without hard drives, buying them, then installing them myself but it might turn into a pain in the arse with driver problems. I read someone had problems installing windows on new hard drives with this clevo chassis but they could be just not very good at these things.

You have to buy a hard drive from PCS, they will not supply a PC/Laptop without one. What I did (defiance II) was order with a 256GB Samsung SSD, where they installed the OS (win 10). Put a windows iso on to a USB drive using their own media creation tool. I then bought a 256GB Samsung 950 Pro NVMe, removed the SSD drive from the system, put the USB drive in the laptop and switched on. The laptop booted straight to the windows installation on the USB drive, a few click later it was installing win 10. Most of the install problems on the new Skylake CPU are from installing Win 7, but it can still be done.
 

Lez501

Gold Level Poster
Cross post with the Scotster..........

.......however, to date I have not found a way to clone a normal HD/SSD onto a new NVMe drive, and believe me, I've tried - it has to be a clean install.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
As I mentioned earlier my latest PCS build has a 512k M.2 NVMe drive in the spec. I had an email from PCS yesterday telling me that by build is 'now being prepared for production' but that there will be a delay because the specified RAM (16GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2666MHz) is out of stock. There was no mention of the M.2 drive not being available so hopefully I've got one.....
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
As I mentioned earlier my latest PCS build has a 512k M.2 NVMe drive in the spec. I had an email from PCS yesterday telling me that by build is 'now being prepared for production' but that there will be a delay because the specified RAM (16GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2666MHz) is out of stock. There was no mention of the M.2 drive not being available so hopefully I've got one.....

I've not heard anything either..... saying that I didn't hear anything about my 4K screen not being in stock either ;)
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Cross post with the Scotster..........

.......however, to date I have not found a way to clone a normal HD/SSD onto a new NVMe drive, and believe me, I've tried - it has to be a clean install.

It must be do-able, there's just no way it's impossible. Even if it requires transferring the image to a USB drive there must be a way to do it. If the drive is available for a clean install it's available to copy an image onto.
 

Lez501

Gold Level Poster
It must be do-able, there's just no way it's impossible. Even if it requires transferring the image to a USB drive there must be a way to do it. If the drive is available for a clean install it's available to copy an image onto.

If you ever find a way to do it, please feel free to let me know............:yes:

Probably didn't make it clear before - obviously very easy to physically clone the drive, it's just that the cloned drive will not boot due to the different technologies involved.
 
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