Advice Needed Mini PCIe slot - what could I use it for?

[jeallen01]

Morning

The Acer N2620g is now (hopefully!) in the process of upgrading (again!) to WIN 10 Pro, but as some of you will know, it has been in bits for the last few days and during that period I realised that it has a one of the above slots on the m/b.

Am wondering if there is anything useful I could use the slot for, given that it has no access to matching slots in
the exterior of the case?

At the moment, the only suggestions I could find online were:
- a mini-PCIe SSD, but how could I then make that the boot drive as it would be expensive and wasted just to use it as local storage?
- a 3G/4G modem, but there's no point in that as I have cable broadband and several other ways of accessing 3G/4G services.

So, does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Captain Jack]

SSD would be a very good upgrade - you would probably need to reinstall onto there but it will be a much quicker process. You'll be able to specify the boot priority in BIOS somewhere.

 

[jeallen01]

SSD would be a very good upgrade - you would probably need to reinstall onto there but it will be a much quicker process. You'll be able to specify the boot priority in BIOS somewhere.

That's what I'm inclined to try - been into the BIOS many times recently, and think I could do that.

OTOH, was wondering if I had missed some other possibilities for the slot?

 

[Captain Jack]

I guess the question is - what do you think you're missing? Like you say, the 4G modem is somewhat useless these days - plenty of ways to get online. SSD upgrade is the best thing you can do - it will be like a new computer. And a lot quieter.

 

[pgh13]

Agreed on the SSD. I ditched the 4G modem on my Lenovo and replaced with mSATA SSD. If you've got a good W10 installation you could maybe backup and then restore to the SSD using Windows recovery?

 

[jeallen01]

Thanks guys - looks like an SSD (would be my first of those) if I do do anything with this slot.

PS: this m/c is totally silent anyway - can't hear the fan or the hard disk even when it's being worked hard, which is a pain at times because I can't be sure when it's seeking/storing!

 

[2cvbloke]

Is it a mPCIe slot, or is it an mSATA slot? The two aren't interchagable despite having the same connector, which is why they came up with the M.2 spec for PCB SSDs...

 

[jeallen01]

Is it a mPCIe slot, or is it an mSATA slot? The two aren't interchagable despite having the same connector, which is why they came up with the M.2 spec for PCB SSDs...

AFAIK, from what I found, it's mPCIe, and not mSATA, because the m/c is quite an old design.