I’ve been aware that the performance of an old HP Pavilion Split X2 (13-r010dx) is constrained by its hard drive to some degree. But when I tried to remove that constraint by upgrading it to a commodity SATA SSD, I found that it did not use the connector type I was familiar with. Rather, it used a much thinner and rarer variant called SFF-8784. Native SFF-8784 drives are expensive due to their low volume, but I found an Amazon vendor selling SFF-8784 adapter circuit boards to use mSATA or M.2 SATA SSDs. I resolved to come back to this project later, when I have a spare M.2 SATA SSD to try.

It is now later. Thanks to some end-of-year sales, my computers received upgrades and the cascade of hand-me-down freed up a M.2 SATA SSD for this experiment. I proceeded to order the M.2 to SFF-8784 adapter board I found earlier (*) eager to see how it might improve the old HP’s responsiveness.

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Unfortunately, the first adapter arrived damaged. It was shipped in an anti-static bag and enclosed in a padded envelope. The padding was apparently not enough, because the M.2 connector was crushed out of shape. I doubted it would accept a M.2 SATA SSD and I didn’t want to risk a perfectly functioning SSD to try.

I contacted Sintech and they sent a replacement. When the replacement arrived, I noticed a modification. It was still in an anti-static bag in a padded envelope, but there was the additional padding of a block of pink foam to protect the M.2 connector.

With the help of this pink foam block, the onboard M.2 connector survived shipping and looked good enough for this SSD upgrade project to begin.

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(*) Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.