G750JH-DB71 Who has replaced the M.2 drives with larger drives?

[hmscott]

Hi, I am thinking about picking up a G750JH-DB71 and I noticed that someone said that the drives used for the boot RAID 128GB+128GB SSD are proprietary and not replaceable with standard mSATA SSD's. Is this true? Has anyone replaced the original SSD drives with larger drives?

Update: It turns out that the SSD drives in the JH are special interfaces, not mSATA. The closest name I can find that differentiates them is "M.2 NGFF SATA" or "M.2 SATA".

At one point it looked like A110 or X110 might be the unique name, but that is a more generic name for SanDisk SSD's, and includes 2.5" drives.

Recently I tried to purchase the 256GB version of the M.2 SSD, but no luck. And, with all the confusion about the form factor, the retail components place called and ordered what they thought was the right component and were shipped 2.5" 256GB SanDisk drives, I don't feel comfortable ordering off of Ebay - there are some listings that look correct.

The M.2 is longer and narrower than the mSATA boards, and the M.2 has a distinctively different socket/fingers layout.

Here is the original page + a photo of the M.2 NGFF on the left, and typical mSATA boards on the right:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6575/hands-on-with-plextors-ngff-ssds



Wikipedia entry for M.2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2

[Ninjak]

I found the drive caddy in the Asus eStore for the G750JX, but I have no confirmation that it's the same one for the G750JH, particularly since the JH chassis was redesigned to accommodate the 780M.

http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3018
"Compatible Models: G73JH, G73JW, G73SW, G75VW, G750JX"

Figures it doesn't even include the screws.

[hmscott]

Thanks Guys, it looks like the form factor is Msata, just stretched. I will try a couple of other Msata drives, maybe Samsung or IBM, and see if they come up. Then I will need to figure out a bracket to screw them down /support them.

The advantage of the Asus Msata RAID card doubling performance in the same slot is awesome, now I just hope I can get 256GB or 512GB Msata's to work on it.

For now I guess I will swap out the RAID card and put in my already configured 512GB. It should boot fine, but I guess I will need to change the Windows 8 License...

Update: The form factor is M.2 NGFF PCIe, and not mSATA of any kind - I updated the first post with more details.

[MrRuckus]

Please report back and let us know if it works! I have a feeling it will. You'll have to disable secure/fast boot to get into the RAID card Bios.

[Ninjak]

It appears that the aforementioned hard drive caddy, model 13GNY81AM020-1, does indeed fit the G750JH according to another European Asus parts store I found. Apparently all the G7 laptops use the same one going back to the G73JH. This also means that this part may sell out on a very regular basis since I remember constant complaints about that occurring over the past 3 years.

[MrRuckus]

Ninjak wrote:
It appears that the aforementioned hard drive caddy, model 13GNY81AM020-1, does indeed fit the G750JH according to another European Asus parts store I found. Apparently all the G7 laptops use the same one going back to the G73JH. This also means that this part may sell out on a very regular basis since I remember constant complaints about that occurring over the past 3 years.

Good to know about the caddy. Thanks for the info. I may have to buy one at some point in time if I go regular SSD. The RAID of these 128GB's is impressive though. Close to 1000mb/sec!

[Ninjak]

MrRuckus wrote:
The RAID of these 128GB's is impressive though. Close to 1000mb/sec!

Wow. That's definitely fast. How much room was left available of your 128GB after the OS and other stuff? I'm sitting here trying to decide whether or not to get the DB71 or the Canadian DB72 right now since I can get either for the same price. I think the Canadian boot drive is a 256GB Lite-On which would, obviously, be slower, yet roomier.

[MrRuckus]

Ninjak wrote:
Wow. That's definitely fast. How much room was left available of your 128GB after the OS and other stuff? I'm sitting here trying to decide whether or not to get the DB71 or the Canadian DB72 right now since I can get either for the same price. I think the Canadian boot drive is a 256GB Lite-On which would, obviously, be slower, yet roomier.

There's a recovery partition on there as well, but the drives come broken up for some ungodly reason from Asus. I put them back together once I got into it. The 128GB MSATA Drives are in a RAID 0 Configuration so you don't loose any space. Disk is 238.36GB total. OS partition is 217.02 of that, the rest is a 100MB EFI System Partition, 900MB Recovery, 350MB Recovery, 20.01GB Recovery. So out of all of those partitions windows only allows you to use the 1 Primary of 217.02GB. On that I currently have 157GB Free (This is after I disabled Hibernation). The 1TB HGST Drive in the machine is cut into 2 pieces from the factory. I combined those so that's 931GB total.

The drive configuration really makes no sense to me why they come completely butchered. But its easy enough to fix. I guess there are some that use a piece of the SSD to install games on. I just want the OS fast so games go on the 1TB for me.

[andrewp]

Hello MrRuckus,
I have sent you a private massage concerning the drive bays on the g750jh db71 usa model. Please let me know if you recieved it. Thanks again for your help.
Andrew

[ReddRobb]

those of you thinking of buying the hard drive caddy need to look at the picture of the drive bay again...it clearly shows drive 1 is connected to the controller and the two msata sockets on the top of the controller. THERE IS NO PLACE TO PLUG IN DRIVE 0, there is only one physical connector so buying a caddy wont help you.

[Brandon181]

i am also about to purchase a g750jh and im hung up on the US db71 model VS the canadian db72 model......any discussion on this?