Lenovo 300e 2nd Gen Hard Drive upgrade recomendations/supplier

[JazzFlute]

I have 30 Lenovo 300e 2nd Gen winbooks and looking to upgrade the current hard drive as they were provided by the DFE with just 64GB, looking to upgrade to 128Gb minimum depending on cost as a cheap and cheerfull upgrade as they do run ok but currently maxing out due to profiles/applications/updates etc. anyone else upgraded and if yes what with and link?

 

Edited March 5, 2025 by UpTheWolves

[Oaktech]

Are they not soldered storage?

[Norphy]

This is the maintenance manual:

 

https://documents.cdn.ifixit.com/gT2cKmWITmQRRy2W.pdf

 

On page 31, it gives you an exploded view of all of the components in this computer. By the looks of it, the slot above the wifi card in the first picture is a b keyed M.2 slot, which should mean an NVMe SSD should work in there. There's a screw post just behind it which is only a little longer than the wifi card so you may be restricted to a 2240 or 2260 length board.

[JazzFlute]

Memory is soldered but can upgrade storage.

 

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=taking+apart+lenovo+300e+2nd+gen+winbook&mid=EAAAC19E67C08E17ECBAEAAAC19E67C08E17ECBA&mcid=F74BEB445070451AB51AEB6F2E4C61D4&FORM=VIRE

 

1min30 seconds in

[JazzFlute]

Thanks for this I'll look to see what i can find as cant see them being more than £20/£30 as they run well for student devices but just not enough default storage, I bought another 60 of the same model a few years back with 128GB and storage no problem with them. I'd recomend anyone to upgrade the storage if they have these from the DFE as pretty quick job and will add a few years to the device without having any storage problems.

[PotNoodleTech]

I've got 1000 64GB models in a 1:1 setting, and have never run out of storage?

 

Why do you need so much storage there is a setting in google admin console toforce everything to be stored in google drive rather than on the chromebook itself? That should be turned on anyway, as if a chromebook dies, the pupil loses nothing.

 

Or is it just that you have hundreds of users using each device and the user profiles are building up?

[Oaktech]

That's weird - I've got one on my desk and mine is soldered!

 

We've been buying our NVME drives from Amazon.

 

2280 Patriot 128gb £12.99,

2242 Transcend 120gb £16.99

2230 Persistence 128gb £14.99

[JazzFlute]

They are domain joined winbooks not Chromebooks

[JazzFlute]

I think as the video said that some models come with the spare NVME and some dont and have just the soldered storage

[PotNoodleTech]

They are domain joined winbooks not Chromebooks

 

Ah sorry. In that case year you sure do need more than 64GB good luck!

[JazzFlute]

Think I'll just buy a cheap one to see if it fits and then take it from there. £24.91 excl. VAT for 256GB, not bad and I'll update the post when i install it to see how it performs.

 

KingSpec 256GB M.2 2242 NVMe SSD - Read Speed up to 3500 MB/s, M.2 PCIe 3.0 SSD 3D NAND Flash, Compatible with PC/Desktop/Laptop (256GB) : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Edited March 5, 2025 by UpTheWolves

[Olliedawg]

We're always clearing our 64GB models. We use them as shared devices so they fill up after 5 or so student logins.

 

Will keep an eye on this post to see how you got on with your upgrade!

[psydii]

We're always clearing our 64GB models. We use them as shared devices so they fill up after 5 or so student logins.

 

Will keep an eye on this post to see how you got on with your upgrade!

 

We use them as pure InTune managed with the shared device profile. 64Gb is (just) enough. You can almost get away with domain joined/gpo managed if you have them assigned to a single user and keep the apps installed down to just the core 365 suite. But they work best either way when managed through InTune/Entra only.

 

Also on soldered vs m.2, many of this class of laptop can be either. If you were ordering enough you could get them customised to your spec'd. DfE were certainly ordering enough, so it seems plausible to me that initial devices sourced from the channel or already on the production lines might have been m.2 and later on ones ordered direct by DfE were cost-optimised (e.g. slower and soldered flash). Might even been the other way around... I had early production samples from a couple of brands with m.2, but the off-the-shelf models were soldered, but some later DfE ones had m.2 slots. ::shrug::

[JazzFlute]

We're always clearing our 64GB models. We use them as shared devices so they fill up after 5 or so student logins.

 

Will keep an eye on this post to see how you got on with your upgrade!

 

I'll fit it sometime next week and update the post

[JazzFlute]

Just an update as not as straightforward as i thought as you cant disable/remove the internal eMMC but only move up the Boot order. Once you go through the process its straight forward and works fine and in my opinion worth the £25 upgrade so you no longer have any profile/space issues. Rough steps i took are below and i have BCX Network Support Tools installed on the network but if you have a vanilla network it will be a similar process i imagine. Im buying a USB NVMe enclosure to clone all the other hard drives ive bought for upgrading to save installing them in the device and should be a quicker process if works so i end up with the cloned NVMe drives ready to phyiscally install in the netbooks.

 

UGREEN M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps NVMe Enclosure, Aluminum Tool-free Hard Drive Enclosure Support UASP & TRIM for M and M&B Key in 2230/2242/2260/2280 SSDs : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

 

 

How to Install NVMe disk in Lenovo 300e 2^nd Gen with eMMC installed

 

· Rebuild Netbook onto BCX/network with NVMe not installed

· Install all updates once built

· Install Macrium Free Version - Use Macrium to CLONE the disk (ok if NVMe is RAW and unformatted)

· Fit cloned disk into Netbook

· Enter Bios and move NVME as No1 in Boot order

· Logon and test that NVME is booting

· Use Windows Disk Management to extend volume to use full NVMe capacity and format eMMC drive and remove Drive letter so it cannot be accessed and restart

· Log on as Admin and rename Netbook

 

Next steps to clone all new NVMe’s (Use master netbook freshly built)

Use the Master Netbook with NVMe installed and plug in new USB NVMe enclosure with hard drive installed and see if it will clone using Macrium. If it does clone all the drives then install on all remaining netbooks needed and change netbook names etc. if successful.

[PotNoodleTech]

Nicely done mate!!

[E-geek]

On 18/03/2025 at 05:49, JazzFlute said:

Just an update as not as straightforward as i thought as you cant disable/remove the internal eMMC but only move up the Boot order. Once you go through the process its straight forward and works fine and in my opinion worth the £25 upgrade so you no longer have any profile/space issues. Rough steps i took are below and i have BCX Network Support Tools installed on the network but if you have a vanilla network it will be a similar process i imagine. Im buying a USB NVMe enclosure to clone all the other hard drives ive bought for upgrading to save installing them in the device and should be a quicker process if works so i end up with the cloned NVMe drives ready to phyiscally install in the netbooks.

 

UGREEN M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps NVMe Enclosure, Aluminum Tool-free Hard Drive Enclosure Support UASP & TRIM for M and M&B Key in 2230/2242/2260/2280 SSDs : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

 

 

How to Install NVMe disk in Lenovo 300e 2^nd Gen with eMMC installed

 

· Rebuild Netbook onto BCX/network with NVMe not installed

· Install all updates once built

· Install Macrium Free Version - Use Macrium to CLONE the disk (ok if NVMe is RAW and unformatted)

· Fit cloned disk into Netbook

· Enter Bios and move NVME as No1 in Boot order

· Logon and test that NVME is booting

· Use Windows Disk Management to extend volume to use full NVMe capacity and format eMMC drive and remove Drive letter so it cannot be accessed and restart

· Log on as Admin and rename Netbook

 

Next steps to clone all new NVMe’s (Use master netbook freshly built)

Use the Master Netbook with NVMe installed and plug in new USB NVMe enclosure with hard drive installed and see if it will clone using Macrium. If it does clone all the drives then install on all remaining netbooks needed and change netbook names etc. if successful.

I've been looking to buy a second hand Lenovo 300e [Windows], and I would like to know how does it fit in that space, could you add some photos of the board with the M.2 installed? It was a 2242 right?

[JazzFlute]

2 hours ago, E-geek said:

I've been looking to buy a second hand Lenovo 300e [Windows], and I would like to know how does it fit in that space, could you add some photos of the board with the M.2 installed? It was a 2242 right?

 

Not all models of 330e have a NVMe slot so check first if you haven't.

 

£24.91 excl. VAT

KingSpec 256GB M.2 2242 NVMe SSD - Read Speed up to 3500 MB/s, M.2 PCIe 3.0 SSD 3D NAND Flash, Compatible with PC/Desktop/Laptop (256GB) : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

 

 

[JazzFlute]

[E-geek]

Hey, I finally got the laptop and wanted to share my own pic about the internals. I've put Kubuntu on it and It works perfectly fine. It seems the M2 memory is actually on the lower end in terms of speed so I have more reasons to upgrade it to a bigger one.

Edited September 29, 2025 by E-geek
Adding more info about speed of stock storage drive.