Will a Latitude E7450 support both a 2.5' 500GB SSD and a 250GB mSATA SSD?

Question

I recently bought a Latitude E7450 laptop Service Tag hoping that I can utilize the existing 256GB mSATA2 and a 2.5' Samsung 500GB SSD. I bought a caddy for the project.  I have no difficulty removing the old caddy containing the mSATA SSD and installing the new caddy with the 2.5' 500GB SSD.  The problem is where on the motherboard can I next plug in the 250GB mSATA SSD?  The only possible place is where the WWAN card would be. However, the connector for that card is different from the mSATA SSD card connection.  Is there any SATA connector/adapter that can plug into the WWAN connection.I checked alot of sites and found a YouTube video showing that such a mSATA connection is available for the Latitude E7440.  I am hoping ultimately to have a dual storage system for my E7450. Any positive and  helpful assistance with this issue will be greatly appreciated.

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@cherokee65  I would recommend removing that Service Tag from your post if you can still edit it (Dell recently put a time limit on editing posts for some reason).  Dell Support reps might remove it for you anyway, but you shouldn't post them because they can be used by nefarious people to file an Ownership Transfer on your system, which can create warranty issues for you, among other potential issues.Anyway, I personally had a Latitude E7440 with an mSATA SSD, and the way it worked was that Dell installed an 'interposer board', which was basically a combination of a mounting bracket and mSATA to 2.5' SATA adapter that allowed you to install an mSATA SSD in the area normally used for 2.5' SATA drives and use it through that 2.5' SATA connector -- but that of course would mean using an mSATA SSD instead of a 2.5' SATA drive, not in addition to it.  If you look through the original configuration of your system, you might see a reference to an interposer.As for the adapter you found, that allows you to plug an M.2 SSD into an mSATA connector, which wouldn't help you for using your WWAN slot because your WWAN slot is an M.2 slot.  Even assuming your WWAN slot supported SATA, then ideally you'd get a native M.2 SATA SSD so you didn't need an adapter, but if you already had an mSATA SSD you wanted to use, then you'd need an adapter that went the opposite direction, i.e. allowing you to plug an mSATA SSD into an M.2 slot.

jphughan · Answer

@cherokee65  The slot for the WWAN card is an M.2 slot, and there are M.2 SSDs.  But it gets a bit tricky here, because there are M.2 SATA SSDs and M.2 NVMe SSDs.  Not all M.2 slots have SATA interfaces wired to them in order to support SATA SSDs.  Some laptops definitely do, and there are multiple threads here with confirmation that various laptop models support an M.2 SSD in their WWAN slot -- but there are just as many about OTHER laptops where this was tried unsuccessfully.  As for M.2 NVMe, those use PCIe, which will definitely be available on that M.2 slot, but not all systems support NVMe at all on ANY slot.  I don't think the E7450 supports NVMe at all.  I believe -- but am not certain! -- that if you install an NVMe SSD into a regular M.2 PCIe slot that doesn't support NVMe, then the drive will work but will not be bootable.  Depending on how you plan to use the drive, that might be acceptable to you -- but again, I'm not 100% sure on that.  And lastly, whereas M.2 NVMe SSDs typically use PCIe x2 or PCIe x4 interfaces for high performance, M.2 slots designed for WiFi and WWAN cards typically only have a PCIe x1 interface wired to them, which will limit performance to around 900 MB/s max, even if the SSD you install could go faster.On top of that, depending on the system layout, the WWAN slot might not accept an M.2 SSD of the typical size, which is 2280 (22 wide x 80 mm long).  M.2 WWAN and WiFi cards tend to use a smaller sizes, such as 2230.  There are M.2 SSDs that use a smaller size though, so even if your WWAN slot doesn't offer as much length to the mounting screw hole, that isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, but it might limit your SSD options.As for an adapter, there are mSATA to M.2 adapter brackets, but those bring other considerations of their own.  First, if the M.2 slot doesn't have a SATA interface wired to it, then you're stuck no matter what.  But even if the slot would support an M.2 SSD, then the next question is physical fitment.  mSATA SSDs are 30 x 50 mm, so an mSATA SSD might be too wide and/or too wide for the area of the motherboard where an M.2 card is designed to be used.  But even if you've got the physical space, the adapter bracket will add some thickness, so in a tight fit scenario, that might cause the SSD to sit too high off the motherboard and might prevent the system's base cover from reattaching properly.I realize that none of this answers the specific question of which type of SSD, if any, you can install in your Latitude E7450, since I simply don't know about that specific system.  But hopefully this at least gives you enough to look into these questions and perhaps find answers from people who have tried certain things with your specific model.

Windows 10 version history	Date of availability	End of service	End of service
Windows 10, version 2004	May 27, 2020	December 14, 2021	December 14, 2021
Windows 10, version 1909	November 12, 2019	May 11, 2021	May 10, 2022**
Windows 10, version 1903	May 21, 2019	December 8, 2020	December 8, 2020
Windows 10, version 1809	November 13, 2018	November 10, 2020***	May 11, 2021
Windows 10, version 1803	April 30, 2018	November 12, 2019	November 10, 2020
Windows 10, version 1709	October 17, 2017	April 9, 2019	October 13, 2020

Windows 10 version history	Date of availability	End of service	End of service
Windows 10, version 2004	May 27, 2020	December 14, 2021	December 14, 2021
Windows 10, version 1909	November 12, 2019	May 11, 2021	May 10, 2022**
Windows 10, version 1903	May 21, 2019	December 8, 2020	December 8, 2020
Windows 10, version 1809	November 13, 2018	November 10, 2020***	May 11, 2021
Windows 10, version 1803	April 30, 2018	November 12, 2019	November 10, 2020
Windows 10, version 1709	October 17, 2017	April 9, 2019	October 13, 2020

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