Update, The Drive and Board dose not touch the CPU Heatsink, There Is A Gap Between The Adapter Board And Botton Area of the ALLy Heatsink, Been Running For 3 Days SO far With No Issues. Running some test now toes IF we have any problems with heat but so far it Doing pretty Good.
Would it be possible to put the black sticky sheet underneath the SSD? It would then act as an insulator between CPU and SDD. It kinda seems that you could easily make the necessary cuts to the sheet, so it would fit under the SSD.
@@ETAPRIME One your predictive keyboard is terrible. LOL. AND, secondly, does this support double sided SSDs? Or is that outside the voltage limits of their slot?
I bought one of these last month. Absolutely fantastic. The small factor NVME drives are so hard to fine here and crazy expensive. Got a 2TB 2280 for half the price and installed it with ease. Highly recommended.
@@skirmishnoob225 Nope, no issues at all and I use my Ally for everyday. I tested the temps of the drive too, never reaches thermal throttling temps, even under heavy stress it never goes over 52 degrees C. A friend of mine also has one of these connectors, he's had it for longer than me and his Ally is also fine.
The reason that screw does not come out is its designed to separate the case and you start with your separation tool here. It's the same design on ROG gaming laptops, I have one.
I've seen third party expansion boards like this being made for Thinkpads to add support for different sized m.2 and also other expansions, so it's nice to see this with handhelds too
Love that mod. I found it on alliexpress about 2 months ago. With a little bit more modification and instead if that one, they make another one that's shorter, I've managed to install a 4tb 2280 in the steam deck as well. I was worried about a couple things but I have to say I'm about 80 days after install and I've not had a single problem with it in the steam deck. I'm surprised it s taken this long to see a video about it on. But flag to finally see one. Awesome content man
I have the exact same drive on my Ally. If you don't mind I have some questions for you. Did you reinstall windows or clone the OEM one? If you cloned, did you disable and re-enable bitlocker (encryption)? did you use a heatsink/thermalpad? and what kind of speeds and temps are you getting? Thanks!
@@juanyunis I don't have this drive but I can answer one thing. You should definitely turn bitlocker off if you plan on cloning. It won't work otherwise. I used macrium reflect to upgrade to my sabrent rocket 2230 2TB drive and it worked like a charm
The only issue here is that the ssd is going to be right over the APU which gets very hot. Even if the ssd doesnt touch it there will still be enough radiant heat from the APU that it will slowly cook your SSD. It may not kill it but the SSd's controller is going to throttle the SSD to stop it from cooking itself, speeds will be very fast at first but will slow down after a few minutes of heavy use as the SSD starts to overheat. Its still a nice idea but i feel you would just get the Micro SD issue but this time with a more expensive SSD
I got my WD 2T 2230 for only $124 a couple of months ago. Based on this video it will be more safe in the long run. Not sure why they didn't run it lower closer to the battery but then again that might introduce another issue.
Yea but you can get a 4tb 2280 for nearly same price, and plug it in directly with no mod. Not sure about long term, but temps are exactly same as stock ssd and its been months.
@@Cryptech1010 you would need to mod your Ally to fit a 2280. A 4TB 2280 is around $180 if I remember right a couple of days ago. Probably similar speeds so it won't be getting as hot. 2TB is enough for my case usage so I don't need to do either mods.
Gotta love the people claiming this is bad cause of heat without even trying it when all the people who did the mod has shown that temps (with screenshots of drive temperatures while being stressed!) are fine and barely even hitting 60C.
Yup those people are dumb . Saying "it's too close to the heatpipes gonna get so hot .... I mean dude . Heatpipes you won't feel the heat if you don't touch it .. its not the exhaust fan
The screw that does not come out is made like that so it raises the plastic back from the front part so that you can stick a tool to open the ally. They do that in laptops too.
This is incredible. How did I miss this video until now? I have been saving up for a 2TB 2230 but now with this realization I can pull the trigger on a solid 2280 right away!
I've been waiting for this video for weeks. I ordered the adapter off AliExpress for $4 and saw a 2tb lexar for $64 the other day but didn't buy it thinking prime day it'll be lower >.< can't wait to see the long term results!
Well this is truly awesome. I have a 2TB Sabrent inside the Ally, but it’s completely full, even though I’m also using a 1TB SD, which is also full, everything emulation. I started using a second 1TB SD on the USB-C port mainly for PC games. Now I ordered this adapter together with a 4TB Corsair MP600. You never have enough space 😊 Thanks for sharing the information.
Missed some important details, first off, if you're running gen4 you're going to pull more power overall and at idle, and with more power, comes more heat. The ssd controller will go over 70c with the APU under load and it will thermal throttle making the fast speeds useless. The easiest way to deal with this, add a slim heatsink with fins (increase the surface area, flat ones will just delay the inevitable). You really only need a heatsink on the ssd controller itself, the other chips like it hot! Those fast Gen4 speeds are useless in games, they will top out around sata ssd speeds. There will be no gains in game loading times. The biggest issue of running Gen4, the power draw, you're going to needlessly pull wattage from the APU degrading your gaming performance. Best to check what kind of power draw your ssd requires before purchase. p3/p3plus are really good options. Would love to see a more in-depth look at the performance and temps under load and such so we have something to point the community to instead of having to repeat this a million times. :D
@@yeahyeahyeahokayyyyyalso will add to your question, WD Black SSD SN850P with the heatsink or similars, do they fit? And would they affect the battery life and temps?
I just installed the fastest gen 4 2tb 2280 SSD in my new ROG Ally. I got impatient waiting on my adaptor to arrive so I used flush cutters that is used in model building to cut away all the plastic in the way of my SSD till the SSD fit and now plan on just returning the adaptor whenever it arrives. I’m loving my new Ally.
Habe gestern auch mein Ally damit umgebaut. Habe eine Crucial P3 Plus mit 4TB verbaut. Man kann auch ohne Probleme einen 3mm dicken Kühlkörper auf die SSD montieren, das Case passt damit immer noch. Laut HardwareMonitor hatte meine SSD Max. 64Grad, soviel hatte auch die 2230 vorher erreicht. Ich habe Windows mit Cloud Recovery auf die 4TB SSD installiert. Ich hatte beim Wechsel den Akku abgezogen, dadurch wird die Systemzeit im BIOS zurückgesetzt, bevor man Cloud Recovery startet muss man Datum und Uhrzeit neu einstellen weil Cloud Recovery nur funktioniert wenn noch Garantie auf dem Ally ist und das wird mit dem Datum abgeglichen, andernfalls läuft das Setup ewig durch beim Überprüfungsprozess. Das Ally hat die P3 Plus auch sofort erkannt im BIOS. Kann man wirklich empfehlen dieses Adapterboard.
ah cool genau das hatte ich eben in einem kommentar gefragt....ob der video macher weiss wieviel platz zwischen ssd und backplate ist....hmm meinste echt das da noch so viel platz ist? bei der heatpipe denke ich eine kupflerplatte drauf zumachen...in einem anderen video meinte jemand auch ...das man ein kupferkühler auf die lange ssd packen kann. naja hab meinen noch nicht auf gemacht.... muss noch ein zwei monate warten bis ich mir ne 2tg leisten kann...
@@LauraStallone-we4hg Doesn't overheat that I'm aware of. There really isn't anything underneath it that radiates heat up to the SSD. Mine is just naked as in the video.
I'm ecstatic because of this modification. I am definitely buying an eight terabyte 2280! Thank you for showing new potentials to my future device. You definitely cannot do this on a Lenovo legion go at least not yet.
How’d this work out, you ever do it? I rly wanna put in a 4tb but I’m way too scared about frying the thing.. unless maybe going with the gen 3 adapter to throttle the speeds.
Im using an 2280 ssd enclosure and an usb dock which has hdmi, two usb c and pd type c port. I connected the usb dock using a type c extension cable to the ally, And this setup made me connect my monitor with wireless keyboard and mouse with 1tb external storage and 100w pd type c port too!
I recommend this mod for the less expensive-large SSD's! I installed a 4TB and used Macrium Reflect to clone over the smaller SSD to this. I placed some electrical tape under the apadter to shield the area. Maybe Kapton tape can be used? Nonetheless, I've been gaming with this setup without any problems.
Maybe it won't have any negative impact on the performance or longevity of the SSD, but having it running right across the APU like that is kinda scary. That gets toasty when gaming so that's definitely gonna heat the SSD up. Guess long term testing would be the only way to know. But a cheaper alternative to the small SSD's might be worth it.
you could argue forcing yourself to use a 2230 would not be a longevity option either. 2230 ssds do not have on board dram cache, sot he write cycles of all 2230 ssds are significantly shorter when compared to ssds with dram on board. (can even be 1/4th the write lifetime)
@@Dudewitbow however there are 2280's that also have no DRAM cache (like the lexar nm790) which im going to install into my Ally once i got the adaptor
I bought a 99o pro 2TB and modded the cooling for the Ally adding a heatsink to it. was only 130 dollars for the NVME and like 13 bucks for the 90 degree adapter.
That make thar same mod board but smaller. With a little but more modification and using the shorter one, I have a 4tb 2280 in Mt steam deck. So, go get creative and think out side the box. I bet you'd figure something out as well. I will sya it deff wasn't easy and the other mod that u have to do (heatpipe ANd a couple other things) it was deff not easy but totally worth it😊
With both hands and tool inside a laptop or handheld you definitely want to unplug that battery and hold the power button for 5 seconds before doing anything else!
How long until we get an update video regarding this setup and how the SSD is performing in 3 or 6 or 12 months ? A lot of people have been pointing out that this makes the SSD basically sit on top of the hot cooling plate / stuff which might affect performance or the life span of the SSD when it comes to temperatures 👀
People already install this bracket on day one since ROG Ally got released . I never seen any SSD failure on their ROG Ally on internet because of this mod. On the other hand, it's just only been 3 months
I'm curious of how this happened to you. I'm seeing much better temperatures with my Lexar NM790 4TB (Max 75C with CrystalDiskMark) vs my previous WD SN740 2TB 2230 with copper heatsink (Max 88C with CrystalDiskMark) drive.
Just installed yesterday an 2280 Lexar NM790 2TB Gen 4 ssd and oh boy was i in for a treat, instalation is pretty straight forward like the video, just keep steady hands, Cloud Recovery is amazing, pretty easy, the load times are pretty instant, temps are lower
@chebson20s everything is perfect honestly like just recently bought from factory, Temps are lower I believe and stellar performance, loading times are pretty much instant, no complaints at all, just added the Spigen Case also, feels amazing, and battery life is much improved disabling the cpu boost helps since it doesn't affect performance
@@LauraStallone-we4hg im not using any kind of thermal solution, just the ssd itself and the adapter, i believe the temps are even a bit lower, it's been a dream come true this Ally
Any updates? I just bought this set up but I haven’t installed it yet, it was expensive so I’m on the fence if I should return and stick to a 2TB 2230 I have
Just saved me $150, thanks man! Considered ordering a 2tb 2230 but was having a hard time justifying it since i had a 2tb 2280 already. This was a no brainer.
If you’re doing the cloud recovery I recommend. 1. Not having an m.2 and a SD card in at the same time. Can cause issues. 2. Make sure the date and time is set in the BIOS. Confuses asus server.
Depends on the ssd - if you go for a cooler ssd that is not running with high thermals (e.g. crucial p3) you will operate within the specifications at max 70 degree celsius. If you go for a very fast high performing one you might run into problems though
@@InnocentBaystanderI planned it in reverse, if running heat high performance SSD now we can put pad and dump those heat on the heatsink also , it still hot but will will do better than no cooling attached
Depend on what ssd you are using. Pcie 4.0 and above will be very hot due to high speed. But if you are usinv nvme pcie 3.0 or just sata m.2 then there's no concern. It will be fine...
I just bought a open box Xtreme rog ally. I am loving how much easier it is to work on. I have a steam deck too, bought the 64GB version and then updated the SSD to a 1TB. not sure what I want to do with the steam deck yet, but I'm definitely loving the rog ally so far especially this mod.
Did this with a 4tb ssd and the sd card slot just stopped working the after a few hours. I didn’t use any thermal pad or copper heatsink. Going to exchange it for a new one and try again with the a thermal pad and heatsink on top. Update so I got a new Rog Ally and the ssd just died, that was with the heatsink on. Killed both sd card and now ssd. This was using custom tdp set to 25w. This is really annoying, I really wanted to like this device but burning up is making it really hard to keep. I’ll just keep my steam deck Oled and no I’m not a fanboy, I have had all three devices and steam deck is the one device with less issues for me. Not saying it’s perfect though.
What about power issues? I know the Valve made a big deal out of people doing this to the Stream deck saying the larger SSD draw more power and the system wasn't designed to handle that.
i would add that do not touch or do anything before unpluggin the battery ever, you dont wanna fry something that takes 2 seconds to completly eliminate the risk of happening
I would recommend telling people to unplug the battery before doing anything to the internals. I’ve personally learned the hard way it’s easy to short a power rail by accident and brick your expensive hardware!
4 tb acer predator gm7 works well, is important to pay atention to power cables... you may have to press carefully a little bit down to allow enough space
I know it way cheaper this way but I'm not sure about it yet. My concern is that the bigger size may affect thermals negatively. I hope this solution works best for everyone and hopefully we can use any drive we have available to us.
@@ezimm81 The XPG 2TB GAMMIX S70 Blade. It has a small heatsink, which doesn't bulk up the device and I've never hit thermal throttling with it, even when gaming for 5 or 6 hours. I checked the temps with CrystalDisk and it never went over 54C. This was whilst playing games during a heatwave where the room temp was around 34C. Hope that helps :)
@@ezimm81 they are probably using high performance and endurance drive. Those drive are excellent if you're using it in PC where space isn't a problem since you can slap some heat sink on it. For something about a console size you probably want to look for efficient drive. The speed won't go as fast but the heat will be manageable.
It's crazy how near the end of 2023 it seems like so many of these SSDs were actually at their cheapest point. I thought it would be like microSD cards and get cheap over time, but it feels like the cheapest was when 2023 ended and now they're at a point where they are just slightly cheaper overall. Don't know why this has happened for these storage devices
The M.2 screw that came with the adapter was too long and knocked off the power supply to the motherboard. I just swaped the M.2 screws and that resolved the problem.
Why does everyone use the Asus cloud recovery? Is there a reason not to clone the drive? I understand if it's brand new - but after a few months it's probably customized to your liking not to mention all the updates that would have to be redone
Wow, i think it might actually be possible to create a custom back plate with a door on the back for quick swappability. Then I can swap drives like cartridges.
VERY VERY important to disconnect the battery before touching anything. All it takes is a slip of the screwdriver or a screw to fall and cause a short. Also spend the extra 20$ to buy and m.2 enclosure and just clone your existing ssd to the new one. The benefit to doing it this way is now you have an extra 512 external drive.
Hey dude , how can I pass my files form the 512 to the 2tb do I need an adapter for my iMac or portable pc to connect them and transfer the files like that ?
I did this mod with a Lexar NM790 Gen 4 4TB (7GB/s speed), put a good thermal pad on top of it and using CrystalDiskMark to bench and CrystalDiskInfo for temperature, my max temperature on the drive is 75C. Remember that this is really pushing the drive to the max. While gaming I get about 54C avg with 60C max. Honestly much better temperatures than my previous nvme WD SN740 2TB 2230 drive, that thing was hot even using the copper heatsink it was reaching 88C with CrystalDiskMark.
So the 2280 runs cooler than the 2230? If so, I'm definitely going to upgrade to a 4tb SSD. Do you think a higher capacity 4TB 2280 SSD will get hotter compared to a 2230 2TB SSD?
@@arnie7975 yeah it does run cooler for me. And nope, I don't think it will get hotter, there is bigger area for the heat to spread. I'm using a high performance nvme, 7GB/s. I'm sure a lower performance one should run cooler.
In your humble opinion. Would you say the Rog ally is more "mod friendly" than the steam deck. Opened my steam deck today and closed it right back. This seems more "easier" more clean 😳
You are going to cook that nvme drive. Might take a month or two but it will kill it. It's basically contacting the heatpipe and heatsink for the cpu. Dumping that heat into the NAND & controller on the nvme drive will cause them to die significantly faster.
@@8bitchiptune420 I dont believe insulating the CPU/GPU to keep the nvme drive cool is a good idea. The ROG Ally already hits upper 80's to lower 90's depending on the game. You further insulate them you are going to be costing yourself performance.
Thanks for this information. I had no idea that those adapters existed. I only bought my Rog Ally Extreme Z1 last month. I have just bought one of those adapters off Amazon, for £10. Different brand, same job. I have a 4TB Kingston 2280 NVME here, now, waiting to go in. I am just shuffling some data around, as we speak. I also have a 1.5TB SanDisk Micro SD Card, which I retrieved from my Steam Deck, when it died. I intend to put that in there also. Once I get the adapter, and I crack the back off the Rog Ally, I will be able to upgrade to 5.5TB of storage data inside of 10 minutes. Is that enough space, 5.5TB? Most desktops that I have seen don't have more than 4TB for their main drive. The Steam Deck only had 3.5TB of data storage before it died. It seems a shame to waste a 4TB NVME though, when I have it here.
Nope... Not true. He's on battery and getting 5K+ that's not Gen 3 speeds. I ran my own tests on 2 different Zen 4 devices. This an a laptop. Both had same speeds on and off battery. Even had the Ally on 20% battery 10 Watts and still 5K+
@@RyeAlvaro I have a 6800u and have a 7840u device, Crystaldiskmark scores crashes when I run on battery vs plugged in on both using the default windows power profile.
@@astralpowers Sounds like user error, try a different installer or zip version.. The 6800 isn’t even Zen 4. It’s Zen 3+ Seems like you need to do some research.
@@RyeAlvaro Mr snark, before you rush to criticize, 6800u supports Gen4 PCIe same with 7840u. And I tell, I get this same behavior when using the default windows power profile.
@@astralpowers Yes, but your original comment is written as if it is a Fact in every situation, when it is a per user issue. You continue in that comment to give advice on something that is not true. Next you say 6800u is Zen 4. That is how misinformation is spread.. Someone can read your comment, and think they need to have their device plugged in to get better performance. Then they start telling people that, and then you have a group of people who think this and when you try to correct them they disagree….. Do you see how this applies to how things are in the World now? Because of misinformation or a per-person issue.
Hey ETA Prime I went ahead and ordered all of the parts I need for this. I have an extra 1mm thermal pad for the ssd would it cause any issues if I put it on the drive after installation?
would of been easier to install windows 11 without asus recovery. asus oem windows security is too tight. my rog basically kept crashing with original software
I cut the heat resistant paper and tucked it under the ssd and put a copper heatsink on the ssd....there's actually quite a bit of room left I wonder if a full sized heatsink would of fit
Only thing i dont like is that it goes right on top of the CPU heatsink so the new SSD will probably get pretty hot, id maybe add a thermal pad inbetween the two if it fits
So I was uncomfortable with the adapters screw touching the allys board, so I slit the black plastic and slid it under the adapter. I feel like this eliminates any chance for a problem.
Update, The Drive and Board dose not touch the CPU Heatsink, There Is A Gap Between The Adapter Board And Botton Area of the ALLy Heatsink, Been Running For 3 Days SO far With No Issues. Running some test now toes IF we have any problems with heat but so far it Doing pretty Good.
hellooo! is there a link for that asus rog ally cloud recovery just in case i get stuck on cloud recovery?
Would it be possible to put the black sticky sheet underneath the SSD? It would then act as an insulator between CPU and SDD. It kinda seems that you could easily make the necessary cuts to the sheet, so it would fit under the SSD.
Thanks - did u do a speed test of the ssd? Wondering if the adapter does not do anything funky…
Just added it thanks Defoe the reminder
@@ETAPRIME One your predictive keyboard is terrible. LOL. AND, secondly, does this support double sided SSDs? Or is that outside the voltage limits of their slot?
This should have a follow-up long term review.
10/10 recommend this. I did this day one at launch. Works like a charm. Not a single issue.
You need to be super careful lady.
Still working?
@@jaleelmcdonald3374 oh yeah. Not one issue ever.
Do u need like a metal heatsink or anything?
@@watchmelivenstuff no
I bought one of these last month. Absolutely fantastic. The small factor NVME drives are so hard to fine here and crazy expensive. Got a 2TB 2280 for half the price and installed it with ease. Highly recommended.
hello what about now? any weird reactions from hardware how about the heat thermals?
@@skirmishnoob225 Nope, no issues at all and I use my Ally for everyday. I tested the temps of the drive too, never reaches thermal throttling temps, even under heavy stress it never goes over 52 degrees C. A friend of mine also has one of these connectors, he's had it for longer than me and his Ally is also fine.
Any update?
@@therealchebi did the same exact thing 2 months ago and absolutely no issues
Would you still recommend?
The reason that screw does not come out is its designed to separate the case and you start with your separation tool here. It's the same design on ROG gaming laptops, I have one.
I've seen third party expansion boards like this being made for Thinkpads to add support for different sized m.2 and also other expansions, so it's nice to see this with handhelds too
Love that mod. I found it on alliexpress about 2 months ago. With a little bit more modification and instead if that one, they make another one that's shorter, I've managed to install a 4tb 2280 in the steam deck as well. I was worried about a couple things but I have to say I'm about 80 days after install and I've not had a single problem with it in the steam deck. I'm surprised it s taken this long to see a video about it on. But flag to finally see one. Awesome content man
There has been many videos about it already
Any video of this being installed in a steam deck?
is your SSD double sided?
@@DaveMojica it has to be single sided.
Did this about a week ago, I'm running the Lexar NM790 Gen 4, 4TB SSD for $198 on amazon.
I have the exact same drive on my Ally. If you don't mind I have some questions for you. Did you reinstall windows or clone the OEM one? If you cloned, did you disable and re-enable bitlocker (encryption)? did you use a heatsink/thermalpad? and what kind of speeds and temps are you getting? Thanks!
@@juanyunis I don't have this drive but I can answer one thing. You should definitely turn bitlocker off if you plan on cloning. It won't work otherwise. I used macrium reflect to upgrade to my sabrent rocket 2230 2TB drive and it worked like a charm
I have the same questions
I just did this and i found my temps a bit wild 75c the highest - what temps you getting on the nvme ?
@@Futura2500 did you use thermal pads? Also ditch the heat sync copper. It just traps heat.
Thanks for sharing awareness. Of course, I'd be too concerned about the heat from the heat pipes to ever do it. But it's good to know your options.
The only issue here is that the ssd is going to be right over the APU which gets very hot. Even if the ssd doesnt touch it there will still be enough radiant heat from the APU that it will slowly cook your SSD. It may not kill it but the SSd's controller is going to throttle the SSD to stop it from cooking itself, speeds will be very fast at first but will slow down after a few minutes of heavy use as the SSD starts to overheat.
Its still a nice idea but i feel you would just get the Micro SD issue but this time with a more expensive SSD
A micro SD is an even worse idea, the rog ally has a problem where it the micro SD card slot just get burned and it stops working
I got my WD 2T 2230 for only $124 a couple of months ago. Based on this video it will be more safe in the long run. Not sure why they didn't run it lower closer to the battery but then again that might introduce another issue.
Yea but you can get a 4tb 2280 for nearly same price, and plug it in directly with no mod. Not sure about long term, but temps are exactly same as stock ssd and its been months.
@@Cryptech1010 you would need to mod your Ally to fit a 2280. A 4TB 2280 is around $180 if I remember right a couple of days ago. Probably similar speeds so it won't be getting as hot. 2TB is enough for my case usage so I don't need to do either mods.
@@volcalstone That's the point of the angle bracket. No need to mod, just plug in the bracket and plug the ssd into that.
@@tclark5481 technically the bracket is a mod as it is not stock
@@mystertom100 That's like saying a 2230 2T SSD is a mod because it's not stock. It's plug and play, no modifications..
Gotta love the people claiming this is bad cause of heat without even trying it when all the people who did the mod has shown that temps (with screenshots of drive temperatures while being stressed!) are fine and barely even hitting 60C.
Yup those people are dumb . Saying "it's too close to the heatpipes gonna get so hot .... I mean dude . Heatpipes you won't feel the heat if you don't touch it .. its not the exhaust fan
The screw that does not come out is made like that so it raises the plastic back from the front part so that you can stick a tool to open the ally. They do that in laptops too.
This is incredible. How did I miss this video until now? I have been saving up for a 2TB 2230 but now with this realization I can pull the trigger on a solid 2280 right away!
i wanted to come back after receiving the board in the mail and acquiring a m.2 and it does works perfect
That's a nice simple but elegant solution.
I've been waiting for this video for weeks. I ordered the adapter off AliExpress for $4 and saw a 2tb lexar for $64 the other day but didn't buy it thinking prime day it'll be lower >.< can't wait to see the long term results!
Well this is truly awesome. I have a 2TB Sabrent inside the Ally, but it’s completely full, even though I’m also using a 1TB SD, which is also full, everything emulation. I started using a second 1TB SD on the USB-C port mainly for PC games. Now I ordered this adapter together with a 4TB Corsair MP600. You never have enough space 😊 Thanks for sharing the information.
Where did you buy the adapter?
Missed some important details, first off, if you're running gen4 you're going to pull more power overall and at idle, and with more power, comes more heat. The ssd controller will go over 70c with the APU under load and it will thermal throttle making the fast speeds useless. The easiest way to deal with this, add a slim heatsink with fins (increase the surface area, flat ones will just delay the inevitable).
You really only need a heatsink on the ssd controller itself, the other chips like it hot!
Those fast Gen4 speeds are useless in games, they will top out around sata ssd speeds. There will be no gains in game loading times.
The biggest issue of running Gen4, the power draw, you're going to needlessly pull wattage from the APU degrading your gaming performance. Best to check what kind of power draw your ssd requires before purchase. p3/p3plus are really good options.
Would love to see a more in-depth look at the performance and temps under load and such so we have something to point the community to instead of having to repeat this a million times. :D
Just curious to know what the measurement on those heatsink fins would need to be in order to fit into this device though. 🤔
@@yeahyeahyeahokayyyyyalso will add to your question, WD Black SSD SN850P with the heatsink or similars, do they fit? And would they affect the battery life and temps?
@@x7ameedo700 bad choice, that drive can pull up to 6W from the APU greatly degrading your game performance.
@@designgears which one do you recommend, i want to upgrade to 4tb?
How about gen 3?
I just installed the fastest gen 4 2tb 2280 SSD in my new ROG Ally. I got impatient waiting on my adaptor to arrive so I used flush cutters that is used in model building to cut away all the plastic in the way of my SSD till the SSD fit and now plan on just returning the adaptor whenever it arrives. I’m loving my new Ally.
How’s it working for you? Any updates?
So how’s it going does it still work is the performance worse ?
Habe gestern auch mein Ally damit umgebaut. Habe eine Crucial P3 Plus mit 4TB verbaut. Man kann auch ohne Probleme einen 3mm dicken Kühlkörper auf die SSD montieren, das Case passt damit immer noch.
Laut HardwareMonitor hatte meine SSD Max. 64Grad, soviel hatte auch die 2230 vorher erreicht.
Ich habe Windows mit Cloud Recovery auf die 4TB SSD installiert. Ich hatte beim Wechsel den Akku abgezogen, dadurch wird die Systemzeit im BIOS zurückgesetzt, bevor man Cloud Recovery startet muss man Datum und Uhrzeit neu einstellen weil Cloud Recovery nur funktioniert wenn noch Garantie auf dem Ally ist und das wird mit dem Datum abgeglichen, andernfalls läuft das Setup ewig durch beim Überprüfungsprozess. Das Ally hat die P3 Plus auch sofort erkannt im BIOS.
Kann man wirklich empfehlen dieses Adapterboard.
ah cool genau das hatte ich eben in einem kommentar gefragt....ob der video macher weiss wieviel platz zwischen ssd und backplate ist....hmm meinste echt das da noch so viel platz ist? bei der heatpipe denke ich eine kupflerplatte drauf zumachen...in einem anderen video meinte jemand auch ...das man ein kupferkühler auf die lange ssd packen kann.
naja hab meinen noch nicht auf gemacht.... muss noch ein zwei monate warten bis ich mir ne 2tg leisten kann...
Yes I’m glad you did this ETAPRIME love it 😍👍🏽thanks for the video man love it and your videos
An update on the life of the SSD would be great
Amazing Mod, going to do this for my Ally right now!
Thank you so much for this video. Followed your steps and it was flawless with a spare 1TB 2280 SSD I had laying around. :)
I want to ask, does it over heat and do you need a Heatsink with a nano Thermal pads added to the ssd ? Pls let me know thank you
@@LauraStallone-we4hg Doesn't overheat that I'm aware of. There really isn't anything underneath it that radiates heat up to the SSD. Mine is just naked as in the video.
I'm ecstatic because of this modification. I am definitely buying an eight terabyte 2280! Thank you for showing new potentials to my future device. You definitely cannot do this on a Lenovo legion go at least not yet.
How’d this work out, you ever do it? I rly wanna put in a 4tb but I’m way too scared about frying the thing.. unless maybe going with the gen 3 adapter to throttle the speeds.
Im using an 2280 ssd enclosure and an usb dock which has hdmi, two usb c and pd type c port. I connected the usb dock using a type c extension cable to the ally, And this setup made me connect my monitor with wireless keyboard and mouse with 1tb external storage and 100w pd type c port too!
I recommend this mod for the less expensive-large SSD's! I installed a 4TB and used Macrium Reflect to clone over the smaller SSD to this. I placed some electrical tape under the apadter to shield the area. Maybe Kapton tape can be used? Nonetheless, I've been gaming with this setup without any problems.
Yep I used kapton tape under the part that sits on that battery connector, seems good to go I used same Macrium to clone the drive and now have 2tb!
Maybe it won't have any negative impact on the performance or longevity of the SSD, but having it running right across the APU like that is kinda scary. That gets toasty when gaming so that's definitely gonna heat the SSD up. Guess long term testing would be the only way to know. But a cheaper alternative to the small SSD's might be worth it.
you could argue forcing yourself to use a 2230 would not be a longevity option either. 2230 ssds do not have on board dram cache, sot he write cycles of all 2230 ssds are significantly shorter when compared to ssds with dram on board. (can even be 1/4th the write lifetime)
@@Dudewitbow however there are 2280's that also have no DRAM cache (like the lexar nm790) which im going to install into my Ally once i got the adaptor
@@Futura2500 hence, compared the ssds with dram, as it implies there are some that dont. Where all 2230 ssds dont due to size
I bought a 99o pro 2TB and modded the cooling for the Ally adding a heatsink to it. was only 130 dollars for the NVME and like 13 bucks for the 90 degree adapter.
@@jneo8808how’s the cooling on 990 pro work on the ally though? What cooling solution did you use?
Wish there was a mod like this for the Steam Deck
That make thar same mod board but smaller. With a little but more modification and using the shorter one, I have a 4tb 2280 in Mt steam deck.
So, go get creative and think out side the box. I bet you'd figure something out as well. I will sya it deff wasn't easy and the other mod that u have to do (heatpipe ANd a couple other things) it was deff not easy but totally worth it😊
With both hands and tool inside a laptop or handheld you definitely want to unplug that battery and hold the power button for 5 seconds before doing anything else!
Just want to say thank you for all the blessings 🙏
How long until we get an update video regarding this setup and how the SSD is performing in 3 or 6 or 12 months ? A lot of people have been pointing out that this makes the SSD basically sit on top of the hot cooling plate / stuff which might affect performance or the life span of the SSD when it comes to temperatures 👀
People already install this bracket on day one since ROG Ally got released . I never seen any SSD failure on their ROG Ally on internet because of this mod. On the other hand, it's just only been 3 months
I've had an nvme drive burn out like this. I'd be careful. It was a high performance ssd. It's right over the heatsink for the cpu
Curious if running that black paper flap stuff underneath the adapter would help keep the heat away
I'm curious of how this happened to you. I'm seeing much better temperatures with my Lexar NM790 4TB (Max 75C with CrystalDiskMark) vs my previous WD SN740 2TB 2230 with copper heatsink (Max 88C with CrystalDiskMark) drive.
Pictures or it didnt happen...
@@TheRogueBrono its just electrostatic paper
@@juanyunis did you install your 2280 ssd with heatsink or without?
Just installed yesterday an 2280 Lexar NM790 2TB Gen 4 ssd and oh boy was i in for a treat, instalation is pretty straight forward like the video, just keep steady hands, Cloud Recovery is amazing, pretty easy, the load times are pretty instant, temps are lower
Any update bro?
@chebson20s everything is perfect honestly like just recently bought from factory, Temps are lower I believe and stellar performance, loading times are pretty much instant, no complaints at all, just added the Spigen Case also, feels amazing, and battery life is much improved disabling the cpu boost helps since it doesn't affect performance
Do you use with or without heatsink variant ?
@@RubenNeves22hello I want to ask, does it over heat and do you need a Heatsink with a nano Thermal pads added to the ssd ?
@@LauraStallone-we4hg im not using any kind of thermal solution, just the ssd itself and the adapter, i believe the temps are even a bit lower, it's been a dream come true this Ally
Now I wanna add a 4TB after seeing this video
Just got the Ally, and I was looking for a tutorial, thanks! I have installed a 4TB WD SSD, let’s hope it isn’t going to have any issues.
Is it running well? Are you getting any issues because I’m thinking on doing this because I’m afraid to use the sd card slot on the ally.
Any updates? I just bought this set up but I haven’t installed it yet, it was expensive so I’m on the fence if I should return and stick to a 2TB 2230 I have
Just saved me $150, thanks man! Considered ordering a 2tb 2230 but was having a hard time justifying it since i had a 2tb 2280 already. This was a no brainer.
They say it causes high temperatures because of the transformer. Is this true?
Did you have any problem?
If you’re doing the cloud recovery I recommend.
1. Not having an m.2 and a SD card in at the same time. Can cause issues.
2. Make sure the date and time is set in the BIOS. Confuses asus server.
No thermal readings? ETA Prime usually gives us the thermals when benchmarking a new drive/graphics card.
Probably wants to give it a couple days and make a update video
On reddit, it was said that the M.2 runs really, really hot. Makes sense since its almost on top of the heat sink.
That’s my concern about this mod
Depends on the ssd - if you go for a cooler ssd that is not running with high thermals (e.g. crucial p3) you will operate within the specifications at max 70 degree celsius. If you go for a very fast high performing one you might run into problems though
How hot is hot when running hard games?
@@InnocentBaystanderI planned it in reverse, if running heat high performance SSD now we can put pad and dump those heat on the heatsink also , it still hot but will will do better than no cooling attached
Depend on what ssd you are using. Pcie 4.0 and above will be very hot due to high speed. But if you are usinv nvme pcie 3.0 or just sata m.2 then there's no concern. It will be fine...
Doesn't this cook the SSD from the backside? :D
I wonder what the temperature of the SSD mounted above this hot radiator is.
I just did this upgrade and now it’s in recovery mode so it’s going good so far lol
This is a nice vid. I wish it was that simple for the SteamDeck.
I just bought a open box Xtreme rog ally. I am loving how much easier it is to work on. I have a steam deck too, bought the 64GB version and then updated the SSD to a 1TB. not sure what I want to do with the steam deck yet, but I'm definitely loving the rog ally so far especially this mod.
Treating myself to this handheld for black Friday almost here
Did this with a 4tb ssd and the sd card slot just stopped working the after a few hours. I didn’t use any thermal pad or copper heatsink. Going to exchange it for a new one and try again with the a thermal pad and heatsink on top. Update so I got a new Rog Ally and the ssd just died, that was with the heatsink on. Killed both sd card and now ssd. This was using custom tdp set to 25w. This is really annoying, I really wanted to like this device but burning up is making it really hard to keep. I’ll just keep my steam deck Oled and no I’m not a fanboy, I have had all three devices and steam deck is the one device with less issues for me. Not saying it’s perfect though.
2:42 don't you require to ground yourself first, and than disconnect the battery cable in the middle under the 2230 SSD ?
thank you so much for this guide, so amazing!
What about power issues? I know the Valve made a big deal out of people doing this to the Stream deck saying the larger SSD draw more power and the system wasn't designed to handle that.
i would add that do not touch or do anything before unpluggin the battery ever, you dont wanna fry something that takes 2 seconds to completly eliminate the risk of happening
Easy peasy. Good video. Thanks.
I would recommend telling people to unplug the battery before doing anything to the internals. I’ve personally learned the hard way it’s easy to short a power rail by accident and brick your expensive hardware!
Gotta do a battery replacement video showing the 74W battery
4 tb acer predator gm7 works well, is important to pay atention to power cables... you may have to press carefully a little bit down to allow enough space
These people are doing the lord’s work
I know it way cheaper this way but I'm not sure about it yet. My concern is that the bigger size may affect thermals negatively. I hope this solution works best for everyone and hopefully we can use any drive we have available to us.
It doesn't affect thermals at all. I've tested this over the last few weeks. The NVME I have also doesn't go over 52c. No need to worry about heat :)
@@Bl4ckH4nd That is great news.
@@Bl4ckH4ndwhich nvme did you use? A lot of people using this mod complaining about heat and throttling
@@ezimm81 The XPG 2TB GAMMIX S70 Blade. It has a small heatsink, which doesn't bulk up the device and I've never hit thermal throttling with it, even when gaming for 5 or 6 hours. I checked the temps with CrystalDisk and it never went over 54C. This was whilst playing games during a heatwave where the room temp was around 34C. Hope that helps :)
@@ezimm81 they are probably using high performance and endurance drive. Those drive are excellent if you're using it in PC where space isn't a problem since you can slap some heat sink on it. For something about a console size you probably want to look for efficient drive. The speed won't go as fast but the heat will be manageable.
It's crazy how near the end of 2023 it seems like so many of these SSDs were actually at their cheapest point. I thought it would be like microSD cards and get cheap over time, but it feels like the cheapest was when 2023 ended and now they're at a point where they are just slightly cheaper overall. Don't know why this has happened for these storage devices
The M.2 screw that came with the adapter was too long and knocked off the power supply to the motherboard. I just swaped the M.2 screws and that resolved the problem.
That’s mean i can install 4T ? ! 🤔🤔
Any updates on this set up ETA? Wondering like a lot of people about the longevity of it
Why does everyone use the Asus cloud recovery? Is there a reason not to clone the drive? I understand if it's brand new - but after a few months it's probably customized to your liking not to mention all the updates that would have to be redone
Wow, i think it might actually be possible to create a custom back plate with a door on the back for quick swappability.
Then I can swap drives like cartridges.
Very helpful can’t thank you enough! 😅
Someone needs to test the heat of the SSD durring full load 30w gaming
VERY VERY important to disconnect the battery before touching anything. All it takes is a slip of the screwdriver or a screw to fall and cause a short. Also spend the extra 20$ to buy and m.2 enclosure and just clone your existing ssd to the new one. The benefit to doing it this way is now you have an extra 512 external drive.
Hey dude , how can I pass my files form the 512 to the 2tb do I need an adapter for my iMac or portable pc to connect them and transfer the files like that ?
I already did this and been running a 4TB Gen 4 NVMe.
Did you ever run into heat issues?
@@YouOweMeMoney Not at all.
@@YouOweMeMoney No issues even in scorching Australian summer...
2230's typically run on lower power requirements than the 2280 variants. Just heads up.
Isn't the new SSD getting really hot? (Because it is on top of the cpu/gpu)
I did this mod with a Lexar NM790 Gen 4 4TB (7GB/s speed), put a good thermal pad on top of it and using CrystalDiskMark to bench and CrystalDiskInfo for temperature, my max temperature on the drive is 75C. Remember that this is really pushing the drive to the max. While gaming I get about 54C avg with 60C max. Honestly much better temperatures than my previous nvme WD SN740 2TB 2230 drive, that thing was hot even using the copper heatsink it was reaching 88C with CrystalDiskMark.
So the 2280 runs cooler than the 2230? If so, I'm definitely going to upgrade to a 4tb SSD. Do you think a higher capacity 4TB 2280 SSD will get hotter compared to a 2230 2TB SSD?
@@arnie7975 yeah it does run cooler for me. And nope, I don't think it will get hotter, there is bigger area for the heat to spread. I'm using a high performance nvme, 7GB/s. I'm sure a lower performance one should run cooler.
@@juanyunis Nice! Thanks so much! I just ordered myself a Lexar 4tb SSD. Can't wait to see how it goes.
@@arnie7975 You welcome. Enjoy!
Ordered! Thank you@
This is really impressive
Purchased it using your link. Hope it works.
Thanks prime you the man
In your humble opinion. Would you say the Rog ally is more "mod friendly" than the steam deck. Opened my steam deck today and closed it right back. This seems more "easier" more clean 😳
I did mind with 4tb msi ssd m2. Work like the gem 😂😂
may have to do this!! have a few 2280s but may hold out until i get my Legion Go
Do we need to do any bios or asus related updates before swapping?
No heatsink ?
I have a 8tb no problem 😂 been using it for 2 months now 😅
Which 8tb Drive did you use? Also did you install a heatsink?
Hi ETA, just wanted to ask if you have the same method but instead of cloud recovery by using drive cloning instead? TIA :)
You are going to cook that nvme drive. Might take a month or two but it will kill it. It's basically contacting the heatpipe and heatsink for the cpu. Dumping that heat into the NAND & controller on the nvme drive will cause them to die significantly faster.
You can buy some heat shield sheet and put it underneath the drive.
2280 ssd also uses about twice the power of a 2230/2242
@@8bitchiptune420 I dont believe insulating the CPU/GPU to keep the nvme drive cool is a good idea. The ROG Ally already hits upper 80's to lower 90's depending on the game. You further insulate them you are going to be costing yourself performance.
@@8bitchiptune420at that point just buy a 2230 drive, instead of making your problem and fixing it yourself
@tudorioansafira4697 I don't think that's true. I had been doing research about it .
Thanks for this information. I had no idea that those adapters existed. I only bought my Rog Ally Extreme Z1 last month. I have just bought one of those adapters off Amazon, for £10. Different brand, same job. I have a 4TB Kingston 2280 NVME here, now, waiting to go in. I am just shuffling some data around, as we speak. I also have a 1.5TB SanDisk Micro SD Card, which I retrieved from my Steam Deck, when it died. I intend to put that in there also. Once I get the adapter, and I crack the back off the Rog Ally, I will be able to upgrade to 5.5TB of storage data inside of 10 minutes. Is that enough space, 5.5TB? Most desktops that I have seen don't have more than 4TB for their main drive. The Steam Deck only had 3.5TB of data storage before it died. It seems a shame to waste a 4TB NVME though, when I have it here.
When on battery, these handheld Zen 4 APU devices run their SSDs in Gen 3 speeds. If you use it docked, you may be leaving out performance.
Nope... Not true. He's on battery and getting 5K+ that's not Gen 3 speeds. I ran my own tests on 2 different Zen 4 devices. This an a laptop. Both had same speeds on and off battery. Even had the Ally on 20% battery 10 Watts and still 5K+
@@RyeAlvaro I have a 6800u and have a 7840u device, Crystaldiskmark scores crashes when I run on battery vs plugged in on both using the default windows power profile.
@@astralpowers Sounds like user error, try a different installer or zip version.. The 6800 isn’t even Zen 4. It’s Zen 3+ Seems like you need to do some research.
@@RyeAlvaro Mr snark, before you rush to criticize, 6800u supports Gen4 PCIe same with 7840u. And I tell, I get this same behavior when using the default windows power profile.
@@astralpowers Yes, but your original comment is written as if it is a Fact in every situation, when it is a per user issue. You continue in that comment to give advice on something that is not true. Next you say 6800u is Zen 4. That is how misinformation is spread.. Someone can read your comment, and think they need to have their device plugged in to get better performance. Then they start telling people that, and then you have a group of people who think this and when you try to correct them they disagree….. Do you see how this applies to how things are in the World now? Because of misinformation or a per-person issue.
This is SICK! Big thanks for sharing!!
Nice mod sir😊. But I have a question by the m.2 ssd slot can we add a egpu like you have done in Lenovo legion go. ???
Hey ETA Prime I went ahead and ordered all of the parts I need for this. I have an extra 1mm thermal pad for the ssd would it cause any issues if I put it on the drive after installation?
4:24 please tell us what cable are you using.
would of been easier to install windows 11 without asus recovery. asus oem windows security is too tight. my rog basically kept crashing with original software
hey brother whats that cable you have with the wattage readout
Was thinking about this but what about heat? A lot of people complaining about throttling and overheating ssd
mine, i cant close the backcover.. gotta cut a little plastic that press to the nvme in order to close it nicely.
Thanks for this tip, I wasn't aware it was an option. I guess I wasted a fair bit on an SD card.
Great video....thanks
Ah yes, what I really need for my system: more STOARGE 😂
Man I hope I can do this with the Lenovo Legion Go when it arrives.
I cut the heat resistant paper and tucked it under the ssd and put a copper heatsink on the ssd....there's actually quite a bit of room left I wonder if a full sized heatsink would of fit
Some China ppl producing the PCB of oculink interface with 2230 for ally, and remake the back shell for that.
How crazy is that.
Only thing i dont like is that it goes right on top of the CPU heatsink so the new SSD will probably get pretty hot, id maybe add a thermal pad inbetween the two if it fits
So I was uncomfortable with the adapters screw touching the allys board, so I slit the black plastic and slid it under the adapter. I feel like this eliminates any chance for a problem.
We need this for the SteamDeck as well.