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
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.
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
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.
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
@@InnocentBaystander And for game loading, running, there is barely any difference between een pcie 3, 4 and 5 nvme. At best its 5% in some, few, very few games. Most are in margin of error... Even for games that stream their content.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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😊
@@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.
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
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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 :)
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.
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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 😳
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.
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
A gen3 nvme (they get less toasty) + a very thin aluminum sheet on top of it, like the Kingston Fury Renegade has. That's how i'd do it. Maybe that would be safe enough to stay on top of a 80°C APU all the time
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?
I did this mod, using a high performance nvme and I'm getting 7GB/s speeds with the new drive but tbh, you don't really notice that speed while gaming, probably 1 or 2 seconds max while loading a gaming. You could save money and get a 5GB/s nvme.
G'day mate been following your vids ever since I got onexplayer, since sold that brought the rog ally. My only question no issues running the extender over that connecter it floats over the top of? Cheers have a good one
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
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
just found out about this today! this installation seems easy and def a reason to possibly sell my deck for a rog. im guessing i can prob use a 4tb + drive ?
3mo.s ago i modded my steam deck and installed 2280 size 4tb nvme gen 4, but it’s not the fastest nvme drive. My concern was the higher the write speeds the hotter it will get, so it will be safer to install a gen3 or gen4 nvme with decent read & write speed. I think the maximum total storage steam deck will support is up to 9TB, which is 1 8tb nvme + 1TB microsd but I think that is overkill, 5tb is the sweet spot for storge upgrade mod.
Yeah what's the heat on the M.2 looking like, can you fit a heatsink? My ally X had enough space so I did a 2TB 990 pro with the heatsink on it. The larger you go in capacity the hotter it's going to get. The Gen3 drives stay cool. No need for a gen4 drive for just gaming and OS level stuff like chrome.
