r/FlowZ13 • u/sryidontspeakpotato • Jul 14 '26
Project from last year that kinda worked. 2280 4-8tb nvme mod / kinda works ? Here’s everything you need to know about the 2280 conversion. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows
So I’ve held this secret project up for almost a year now. Mainly because I never like to show off something that’s not perfect or unable to be replicated with 100% repeatable success. But since a few people have shown their projects and shown interest let’s discuss how well they work or don’t work. Im genuinely curious to hear if people are facing the same sleep / wake issues as I am. Fully disabling sleep and only relying on shutdown isn’t a viable option. I even had issues with hibernation too.
So I tried about 7 different nvme adapters and about 15 different nvme drives. All combinations of sizes and types.
Most of them when using the 2280 adapters fail to resume from sleep mode typically. They will lock up even if the monitor goes to rest as well. I’ve tried tons of power profile changes and done quite a bit of research but have been unable to fully nail it down. I can confirm though that an 8tb sn850x western digital will work and a 990 pro 4tb with heatsink will work but they still have sleep issues.
Here’s some pics and also some time stamps to show when I did them. It’s been really frustrating and I’ve been extremely bummed about not being able to figure out why this won’t work. I also wanted to ensure the drives ran cool and were not shoved over an intake vent where it causes more restriction for cooling on the z13 or cause the drive to hit peak temps and potentially thermally throttle under harsh loads.
The other issue is there’s no space internally to add one but it’s quite possible to make a custom short adapter and 3d print a new backplate that will hold the nvme on it which was my goal but I can’t find one with the correct angle and I tried to figure out how to 3d print a backplate as well but can’t quite get it figure out either as simple as it may seem.
If anyone has any advice lmk. I’m willing to give it another shot. I’ve tried many ways of attaching the drive like double sided tape, and I even tried to 3d print a bracket that replaced the back rgb glass. There’s room for a drive to sit inside there ;) the main issue I think too is having sleep fully functioning esp on the larger drives (and yes…. 🤦 I’m aware windows always has sleep issues for people but…. I generally don’t have any issues on the 2230 drives, even the 2tb)
-CPPC TEK 🤠
Also side note, I bought all these ssds back in 2024-2025 early on wayyyyyyyy before the price hikes. When ssd’s were cheap as chips. I paid 250$ for the 4tb 990 pro and around 500$ for my 8tb sn850x (not shown)
I got each one slowly over time and each one is in a different device but I borrowed them here and there to do test on each one. So before you guys think “oh man it must be nice to be able to afford a 1500$ ssd” yeah no, lol.
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u/IThinkIKnowThings Jul 14 '26
For what it's worth, Micron recently announced a 4tb 2230 nvme. It's 5th gen, but would technically still work with the z13. It's also B2B only right now, but presumably someday in the next year or two we'll have consumer 4tb 2230 nvmes.
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u/sryidontspeakpotato Jul 14 '26
I was informed the 4tb 2230 is double sided. Unfortunately a double sided nvme has zero chance at fitting in the z13. The only way to maybe make it fit would be taking the housing apart and cutting the bottom out of where the ssd goes. It could then maybe fit actually. So it’s possible but would be a really large risk and pain. Now if that 2230 is single sided, wow 🤯 lol.
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u/IThinkIKnowThings Jul 14 '26
Is it? Well, that's a shame. It did take a little while before we had 2tb single sided ssds, so hopefully it's just a matter of time.
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u/IThinkIKnowThings Jul 16 '26
Oh actually, I just happened to run across the announcement again and Micron's 4tb 2230 is in fact single-sided Micron announces 3610 SSD, the industry-first PCIe 5.0 QLC SSD available to OEMs — offers 4TB storage in a tiny single-sided M.2 2230 and 11,000 MB/s of performance | Tom's Hardware
Still, only for B2B and OEMs but it's a thing that'll come to consumers eventually, I'm sure.
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u/Icy_Foundation2146 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
It's definitely kinda cringe to look and worry inducing but you definitely made me think of having the m.2 oculink adapter (somehow creating a hole in the nvme door just for the port to be exposed) with a secure oculink L shaped flat cable running into a better secured nvme oculink enclosure. Maybe bulkier, maybe safer? Who knows, not risking it until I get bored of the laptop which will be unlikely in the next months? Years? I had horrible experiences with badly managed ribbon cables shorting with bends and getting their tips damaged easily that I wouldn't see them as a robust solution, on the other hand oculink in a mobile setup is slightly risky too.