Inspiron 11 3000 (3180) mini PCIe M.2 SSD Upgrade

Have you been able to find a 2242 SSD? most are 2280, with a few 2230. Have you downloaded the Service Manual for this notebook there may be some information there as too what and how to upgrade.

Otherwise if you have a USB -C Gen 1 or Gen 2 you could buy a dock for it that would have multiple connections for external devices Even USB 3.1 Type A would give your some ports,  I have a 10 port USB 3.1 Gen 1, that I have an adapter for Ethernet and Mouse USB bud and a couple of external hard drives

Did you ever end up trying this? I am so intrigued by this possibility. However, Dell support explained by phone there may be compatibility issues and just didn't recommend it. 

Thanks!

JD

Crucial say  that 2280 m2 will pop in. Believe it or not - thats the question :))))))))))

What does your Service Manual for your Service Tag Number Say? Otherwise, open it up and see for yourself what socket you have. So Far as I know only M.2 SSD are 2230 and 2280 length. Then you have with M.2 SATA or NVME and then with 2.5 standard notebooks hard drive size you have SSD SATA up to 4 TB. There are also MSATA SSD which is probably what your 32GB drive is

https://www.snia.org/forums/sssi/knowledge/formfactors

For anyone still looking to add storage to their 3180, I just confirmed that you can replace the WLAN module with an NVME drive. To do so you need the following:

1) M2 A/E Key to M key adapter
2) M2 NVME SSD (it must be NVME, SATA AHCI SSDs would not work when I tried)

Here's the adapter that I bought:
Sintech M.2 (NGFF) NVME SSD to M2 A/E Key WiFi Port with 20cm Cable
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZF1W55/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

and the NVME drive:
Silicon Power 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 (SU512GBP34A80M28AB)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L6DKM8V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was able to successfully install and boot windows 10 from it.

Hope this helps

Thanks so much for this great post.  I tried several M2 SSDs before discovering they wouldn't fit.  I have ordered your recommended products, and will see how it goes for my 3180.

It would be of interest to know how you discovered that only NVME would work and not SATA, and how you figured out that an adapter existed, and what type and what manufacturer to choose.

There are similar slot adapters on eBay from China for much lower prices, but they are piggyback without cables and are therefore a little wider (although they might still fit), and it's not clear whether they support SSDs or which SSDs they might work with.

You have saved me and probably many others a huge amount of time and have figured out how to make the 3180 an actual functioning machine.  The 32GB eMMC storage is slow and isn't large enough to update Windows 10.  Thanks again.

It would also be helpful if you could kindly give details on which software you used to transport the Windows 10 OS to the SSD and how you got the 3180 to boot from the SSD.

are you reachable if i need an assist with this?

have you tried this?  i ordered the parts today and if needed want someone to communicate with 

thanks

Were you able to  get this upgrade completed and, if so, what was involved?

Does anyone know where the black and white wires go from the WLAN board? Do they attach to the new adaptor board and where?

Those are antenna wires for a WiFi card, as far as booting. You should boot to F12 and from there boot your new SSD.

Same if you're going to Clone your Hard Drive boot F12 and select your rescue USB then clone from there

Same for Clean Install except you'll most likely have to Install the IRST Driver 

f6flpy-x64.zip

After the first boot using F12 then select your New SSD Clone/ Clean install, your system will from then on boot from your SSD