These use a now obsolete format called mSATA -- there are still some for sale, but the interface is dead as far as newer systems.
Most mSATA drives are either 512G or smaller, or they're from no-name suppliers. Samsung did at one point make a 1T mSATA SSD, though. There are still some 1T SSDs for sale this system will take, but they generally cost quite a bit more per gig than the now standard M.2 format the system cannot take, so carefully consider the cost in light of the fact that you cannot use any drive you buy in a new system.
So, I took a look inside - and the WWAN port was empty. Did a little on line searching and came up with a Kingston 512GB mSATA drive for a reasonable price. It arrived on NYE, and I tried installing it today.
The drive slid in fine. I see it in the bios as the MiniCard SSD Device.
I also can see it in Device Manager, which reports it as operating properly.
However, it's not present in Disk Management.
I'm guessing it needs to be formatted first, but I can't for the life of me see how to do that.
“If you have recently fitted an aftermarket or third party SSD which is recognized in the BIOS and Device Manager, but is not detected in Disk Management, then you may want to try the following troubleshooting steps.”
I tried the first suggestion (BIOS edit), but chickened out when I got the warning that changing from RAID to AHCI might prevent the system from rebooting or requier a re-install. The wisdom to heed such a warning was been (for me at least) hard-earned...
So I explored your second suggestion. Found the drive in Storage Spaces, and it was attached as a RAID pool device. I could not remove it, since it was using 250MB of storage - about 0.13% of capacity.
But I could remove the storage pool, and did. Now I have no drives in Storage Spaces, and 476GB of Unallocated space on the newly appeared Drive 1.
So I'm almost there!
Next question: is it possible to allocate this new drive as an additional partition under the Drive C heading, to make it look as though there is a single 600+GB drive? (Unlikely, I'm guessing)
Or do I assign drive letter D to this new drive (after the BIOS is changed to AHCI) and deal with the dual drives situation?
Ideally, I would want to ghost the existing 128GB Drive 0 contents onto another 512GB mSATA drive, to give me a total of 1TB of storage, but I've got to do a little reading on disk drive cloning, as my knowledge is woefully out of date. But upgrading to that much storage would keep this neat little notebook viable for me for another few years!
I went into device manager, disabled the Kingston drive, and then uninstalled it.
Did a system shutdown and physically removed the Kingston drive.
Rebooted and checked BIOS - no second drive present.
Allowed to PC to boot up and logged in as Administrator.
No error messages noted - everything looks like it should in Device Manager, Disk Management, etc.
I seem to be where I started, with 1GB free on the original 128GB drive.
Now I plan to perform a full drive backup using the 8TB Seagate BackupPlus Hub that Sandy Claws brought two weeks ago, plus I'll finally heed the popup and create a new backup recovery media onto a thumb drive. I'll spend some time reading the documentation on what I can get as far as a "ghostable" image I can produce using these assets.
Order another 512GB Kingston mSATA SSD, while they're still available to be had.
Re: Ideally, I would want to ghost the existing 128GB Drive 0 contents onto another 512GB mSATA drive, to give me a total of 1TB of storage
with two 512GB mSATA in this laptop there are many ways you can organize them, and only you know what you like the best.
no need to be afraid of bios warning when you change from RAID to AHCI. Keeping the RAID mode may be problematic when you have two 512 GB ssd. You can read on RAID 0 vs RAID 1, but RAID is better reserved for two I hdd of same size, not ssd. It is good you have external hdd to back up data.
If I were owner of this latitude w 2x512 gb mSATA I would just change to AHCI, do a fresh clean install of Win 10 on one, leave the other as additional storage drive. ssd are not meant for long term data archive. It is just convenient if you have a lot of big file like 4k video, it is nice to have more capacity. 1TB or even 2tb ssd are getting popular. Personally I never have much data so even a 128gb ssd is enough for me but you obviously have your need.
I am not expert on cloning. When possible I like clean install.
I purchased a Sabrent mSATA to SATA 2.5" enclosure (model: EC-MSSA) so I could use my existing Apricorn EZ Gig software and accompanying USB to SATA cable to clone my 128GB to a LITE-ON 512GB mSATA drive. Keep the 128 as a spare just in case you encounter issues after booting up on the new drive. I reformatted my 128 (wish I hadn't) and reinstalled it for additional storage, which now I get a temporary screen showing both drives. I also had to run a recovery disk to eliminate an invalid partition message which would pop up during boot. I ended up pulling the 128 back out to get rid of the annoying temporary screen.
A friend gave me this laptop broken in pieces and didnt start, its still broken in pieces but now it starts, i got parts, but at the end i think i just clean the ram, check the wires i don't think i replaced anytthing, I just assemble it and started working, and have the same 128gb msata, and not much i can do about it. It's cool that you can put sim card, and that's what caught my eye...im not to much in computers and im thinking of instaling linux to see if how that thing works and if its good im installing it on my primary coz im a little tired of microsoft
ejn63
10 Elder
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30.7K Posts
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December 22nd, 2021 12:00
These use a now obsolete format called mSATA -- there are still some for sale, but the interface is dead as far as newer systems.
Most mSATA drives are either 512G or smaller, or they're from no-name suppliers. Samsung did at one point make a 1T mSATA SSD, though. There are still some 1T SSDs for sale this system will take, but they generally cost quite a bit more per gig than the now standard M.2 format the system cannot take, so carefully consider the cost in light of the fact that you cannot use any drive you buy in a new system.
redxps630
9 Legend
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15.5K Posts
1
December 23rd, 2021 11:00
Agree with tech expert opinion in 1st reply. You have an option to install a second mSATA ssd in the WWAN slot (which is mini PCIe slot). It works in this model. So you could in theory have two 512 GB mSATA ssd if a single 1 tb mSATA is not practical. https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/mSATA-SSD-in-WWAN-slot-in-e7240/td-p/4441260
the down side is you would lose built in wireless and may need to use an external usb wireless dongle or hardwire Ethernet LAN cable for internet.
JP7240
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6 Posts
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January 2nd, 2022 20:00
So, I took a look inside - and the WWAN port was empty. Did a little on line searching and came up with a Kingston 512GB mSATA drive for a reasonable price. It arrived on NYE, and I tried installing it today.
The drive slid in fine. I see it in the bios as the MiniCard SSD Device.
I also can see it in Device Manager, which reports it as operating properly.
However, it's not present in Disk Management.
I'm guessing it needs to be formatted first, but I can't for the life of me see how to do that.
What am I missing?
JP7240
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6 Posts
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January 3rd, 2022 16:00
Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure how that helps me get this SSD formatted and visible to Disk Management...
redxps630
9 Legend
•
15.5K Posts
1
January 3rd, 2022 18:00
Try change bios > sata operation from RAID to AHCI.
Dell factory default is RAID.
redxps630
9 Legend
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15.5K Posts
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January 3rd, 2022 18:00
“If you have recently fitted an aftermarket or third party SSD which is recognized in the BIOS and Device Manager, but is not detected in Disk Management, then you may want to try the following troubleshooting steps.”
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000137098/windows-10-new-ssd-not-detected-in-disk-management#SSD_Not_Detected
JP7240
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6 Posts
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January 3rd, 2022 19:00
You Rock!! This is getting me somewhere!
I tried the first suggestion (BIOS edit), but chickened out when I got the warning that changing from RAID to AHCI might prevent the system from rebooting or requier a re-install. The wisdom to heed such a warning was been (for me at least) hard-earned...
So I explored your second suggestion. Found the drive in Storage Spaces, and it was attached as a RAID pool device. I could not remove it, since it was using 250MB of storage - about 0.13% of capacity.
But I could remove the storage pool, and did. Now I have no drives in Storage Spaces, and 476GB of Unallocated space on the newly appeared Drive 1.
So I'm almost there!
Next question: is it possible to allocate this new drive as an additional partition under the Drive C heading, to make it look as though there is a single 600+GB drive? (Unlikely, I'm guessing)
Or do I assign drive letter D to this new drive (after the BIOS is changed to AHCI) and deal with the dual drives situation?
Ideally, I would want to ghost the existing 128GB Drive 0 contents onto another 512GB mSATA drive, to give me a total of 1TB of storage, but I've got to do a little reading on disk drive cloning, as my knowledge is woefully out of date. But upgrading to that much storage would keep this neat little notebook viable for me for another few years!
Thanks again for the help - keep it coming!
JP7240
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January 3rd, 2022 19:00
See my earlier reply...
JP7240
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January 3rd, 2022 20:00
So here is my plan:
Thoughts?
redxps630
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15.5K Posts
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January 3rd, 2022 21:00
Re: Ideally, I would want to ghost the existing 128GB Drive 0 contents onto another 512GB mSATA drive, to give me a total of 1TB of storage
with two 512GB mSATA in this laptop there are many ways you can organize them, and only you know what you like the best.
no need to be afraid of bios warning when you change from RAID to AHCI. Keeping the RAID mode may be problematic when you have two 512 GB ssd. You can read on RAID 0 vs RAID 1, but RAID is better reserved for two I hdd of same size, not ssd. It is good you have external hdd to back up data.
If I were owner of this latitude w 2x512 gb mSATA I would just change to AHCI, do a fresh clean install of Win 10 on one, leave the other as additional storage drive. ssd are not meant for long term data archive. It is just convenient if you have a lot of big file like 4k video, it is nice to have more capacity. 1TB or even 2tb ssd are getting popular. Personally I never have much data so even a 128gb ssd is enough for me but you obviously have your need.
I am not expert on cloning. When possible I like clean install.
Goofy33
1 Message
0
April 18th, 2022 11:00
I purchased a Sabrent mSATA to SATA 2.5" enclosure (model: EC-MSSA) so I could use my existing Apricorn EZ Gig software and accompanying USB to SATA cable to clone my 128GB to a LITE-ON 512GB mSATA drive. Keep the 128 as a spare just in case you encounter issues after booting up on the new drive. I reformatted my 128 (wish I hadn't) and reinstalled it for additional storage, which now I get a temporary screen showing both drives. I also had to run a recovery disk to eliminate an invalid partition message which would pop up during boot. I ended up pulling the 128 back out to get rid of the annoying temporary screen.
Chemitrish
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1 Message
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May 10th, 2025 11:25
@JP7240 where can i also find one and how much does it cost
Ceko
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2 Posts
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January 28th, 2026 13:05
A friend gave me this laptop broken in pieces and didnt start, its still broken in pieces but now it starts, i got parts, but at the end i think i just clean the ram, check the wires i don't think i replaced anytthing, I just assemble it and started working, and have the same 128gb msata, and not much i can do about it. It's cool that you can put sim card, and that's what caught my eye...im not to much in computers and im thinking of instaling linux to see if how that thing works and if its good im installing it on my primary coz im a little tired of microsoft