MSI GT73 6RF SSD UPGRADE

Hello,
I just bought a new SSD for my laptop. It is Kingston a1000 NVMe 480gb m2. I just wonder do my laptop has enough thermal pads under metal SSD's cooler? Could anyone confirm that MSI GT73 6 RF has just two m2 slots?
Thanks!

 

Assuming you're referencing the Skylake model here:

CM236 version has three M.2 slots (two PCIE and one Sata).
HM175 version has two M.2 slots (the third PCIE has no connector on it).

This same thing goes for the CM238 vs HM175 versions of the GT73VR Kaby lake model.

 

Thank you. I changed my mind and bought Samsung 970 Evo 500gb. A little more money but I think far better. Are all m2 slots the same on SSD's? I saw that some have like 3 pins shape and some 2 pins shape?

 

have the GT73VR RE, with the GTX 1070. I may be wrong but I believe you have the GTX 1080? My laptop came with the 175 chipset which only has 2 m.2 slots, and only one of those is Nvme. The other one is for a SATA 3 m.2 drive. If you have the same chipset then your slots will be like mine. If you have the newer 238 chipset then you will have two m.2 nvme slots and 1 SATA 3, or one that may go either way.
There is a way to tell by looking at the slots. When looking at the slot where you can see the leads and a key way, or vertical bar, if the key is closer to the right side of the slot then it's an M key. Drives with the high-speed NVMe interface use this M key layout. If you look at your Samsung 970 Evo 500gb (I have the same drive and it's blazing fast!), looking down at the top of the drive label with the connector facing away from you, the notch on the connector will also be on the right.

Be very careful putting these drives in. You want to take the mounting screws out first and gently insert the drive into the slot lining up the key and notch, and very slowly push forward on the drive until you can't see the leads on the drive any longer. You may have to wiggle it side to side but not very far. Then lower the other end to the post and screw it down. Don't over tighten. It's not going anywhere.

Now these drives get very hot so you wanna look under the heat sink you removed to get to your slots and make sure your thermal pad is on the same area as your drive. My pad only covers the middle and right slots, however I can't use my middle slot as I have no header there. If I put a SATA m.2 drive in my left hand slot then i will cut half of my thermal pad and move it to the left side.
To finish your question, there is a difference in the slots. SATA 3 only slots and SATA/or nvme slots will have a key on the left side. SATA 3 m.2 drives will have their notch on the left or will have two notches, one on left and one on right. Never flip a drive over to try and use it in the opposite type slot.

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They have a different number of pins on the edge (5 vs 6) and are not compatible this way and you could damage the port or the drive.

Also look at your motherboard just above the m.2 connectors and you should see white lettering labels indicating the type of slot at each location. PCIe means it's an nvme port and Sata means just that. The thermal pads help pull some heat from the drive but don't worry - nvme drives like to be warm. The type of 3D NAND memory in them works better when it gets warm. Regular SATA III m.2 drives don't get as hot cause they don't run as fast, so they may not need a thermal pad.

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Thank You for the very detailed explanation! Yes, I have GTX 1080 and 6 gen Intel CPU 6820 HK. I am glad that I made the right choice. I am still in dilemma is it worthed to install OS on the new drive or to leave on Toshiba 128gb one I got with the laptop. I am a bit lazy to install everything again My chipset is CM236. I hope Falkentyne is right about two PCIe m2 slots because I will have two SSD's with Toshiba one. I am not planning to put them in RAID 0, just to use Samsung one for games and leave OS on Toshiba. I have Arctic 0.5 mm pads, I hope is not too thick or I will buy 1mm one. If my other PCIe slot is in the middle maybe I do not need a pad at all. I

 

Good! You got the good chipset CM236, so yes you should have dual PCIe slots and one SATA m.2, along with your large bay SATA port. I really wasn't going to RAID mine either, if I had them, I just wanted more storage. But since I don't have dual PCIe slots I will have to just get a large SATA m.2 drive. Now for me, I moved my OS to the Samsung Evo because it's so fast (3,500 mb/s). I'm not sure which version of m.2 your Toshiba is but you want to get the model number and google it. Make sure it's as fast as the Evo 970 or you will not be taking full advantage of the money you spent. Games do load faster on SSD's, but not terribly faster. Once loaded into RAM memory, games will run the same speed no matter what they are stored on. You may get some boost on games with large maps or very large textures, but you biggest speed boost will come from the drive you have Windows installed on.
Samsung gives away very well made software on their web site and I had absolutely no problems using it to quickly migrate my Windows 10 OS over to the Samsung 970 Evo, while Windows was running. Just remember once you finish, shut down and remove your original boot drive temporarily and boot up again using your new drive. This will set the boot order to default on the new drive. Now shut down again, put your old OS drive back in, boot up and then you can format the old drive and use it for storage.
There are several free programs available to migrate your OS and some work better than others, but I needed one that went from a 1TB drive down to a 500GB drive (my Evo) during the move. Some software doesn't handle shrinking very well. Also don't forget to pick up and install the Samsung driver for your m.2 Evo drive.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/

Samsung's site is a little wonky so you will have to start here and navigate to Computers, Memory & Storage, Solid State Drives, then select the drop-down for 970 Evo Series, and there's only one size to choose, then click CONFIRM.

There is only one driver so click DOWNLOAD under the driver section. On the Software section, click SEE MORE. Here you will find Data Migration tool and Samsung Magician, along with their manuals. I would get them both. Use Data Migration to easily move your OS to the Evo. Now, if you want to move your OS to a drive other than Samsung, this software probably will not work and you will have to find other free programs on the internet. Macrium Reflect is pretty good for basic use. Even if you don't plan to use the Evo for your OS, go ahead and grab Samsung Magician as it will keep tabs on the health of your Evo drive and allow you to run performance tweaks and benchmarks. I ran a benchmark on my Evo and it came out to around 3,460 mb/s which is just below the rated speed. A SATA III drive will give you about 6mb/s and some SATA m.2 drives can reach just above 500mb/s. So you can see the advantage of the PCIe NVMe drives currently new on the market. They will only get faster too.
I can't say why my thermal pad didn't cover the entire M.2 heatsink although the middle slot is missing on my unit, the pad that's there covers both the middle and right (would be PCIe 1) slot. The pads that are there do make good contact with my drives, however I had XoticPC's Fujiploy thermal pads upgrade. I'm not sure if that included the M.2 area - the pads in this area may be stock from MSI.

 

It's this one https://www.primeabgb.com/online-price-reviews-india/toshiba-128gb-m-2-2280-nvme-ssd-thnsn5128gpu7/ . It is not bad SSD but Samsung is faster. Maybe I will move my OS to that drive Thank You for the guide and for sharing your experience. I will report here my experience as soon as I get my drive.