How to Upgrade the Razer Blade Pro 17 RAM & SSD
The Razer Blade Pro 17, the long-awaited redesign to the Razer Blade Pro lineup, is finally here and in line with all the other Razer Blade laptops we’ve seen lately, there is a welcomed feature: it’s upgradeable.
What I mean by that is that you can buy the Razer Blade 17 Pro from Razer in the one RAM and SSD configuration they now only sell their laptops in, and then, should you feel the urge, you can easily upgrade the RAM or upgrade the SSD to increase the performance or storage. Besides the clear benefits of increasing power and storage as you need it, this is also a great way to save money.
Most of the time, buying the higher RAM or higher capacity SSD from the manufacturer comes with a premium frankly. So, you can get the lower SSD/RAM models that Razer offers the laptops in now and replace them with your own to get to the higher specs for much less money.
Now, regardless of whether you want to max it out, save a little money by installing the RAM or SSD yourself, or just upgrade the laptop as you need it, here’s how to upgrade the Razer Blade Pro 17 RAM and SSD.
Things You’ll Need
If you only plan to upgrade the SSD for the empty M.2 Slot that the Pro comes with or just upgrade the RAM, then you’ll just need the below:
- Razer Blade Pro 17: Duh, but if for some reason you haven’t, you can buy that here.
- T5 Screwdriver:Â To remove the bottom of the laptop. You can buy one here if you don’t have one.
- Philips Screwdriver: To remove the SSD (included with the kit above).
- RAM Upgrade: For RAM, we need SODIMM DDR4 2666mhz RAM and since we have two memory slots for RAM on the laptop we need two modules to equal the total we want. For example, I want 32GBs of RAM (the laptop’s maximum is 64GBs, by the way, and you can get 64GBs for the best price I could find here if you want) so I bought two 16GB modules from here.
- SSD Upgrade: For the SSD, we need at least one M.2Â PCIe NVMe SSD. There are two slots for this so you can just upgrade the empty slot if you need, or upgrade both to get even more storage. I’m going to install a 1TB SSD in the empty slot in this video, which when combined with the 512GB that is already installed, will give me a total of 1.5TB. The one I bought is this super affordable 1TB Crucial drive here (but you can get a 2TB one here from Intel and even buy two to get a total of 4TB if you want), but if you want a more name-brand model, the goto, super fast 970 SSD Evo here from Samsung (or from here on Samsung.com).
UPDATE 06/10/20: There’s a lot more SSD options I would recommend for those who want even more storage: a 4TB and even 8TB option now that will work (if you can justify the spend).
If you plan to upgrade both SSD slots (which would require removing the pre-installed one that has Windows on it), you’ll also need this.
- Free SSD cloning tool. You’ll only need this though if you plan to replace the installed 512GB SSD. We’ll use this to copy that to the new SSD in the second slot in the laptop, then remove it and put in another after so we don’t lose any data.
Razer Blade Pro 17 Upgrade RAM
If you want to upgrade the Razer Blade Pro 17 RAM, we need to just remove the old RAM and replace it with the new RAM. Here’s how.
1. Turn off the computer.
2. Flip it over (it’s a good idea to put something soft under it so you don’t scratch the lid).
3. Unscrew the ten T5 screws holding in the metal plate and set them aside.
4. Using your fingers, pry up the bottom plate until it clicks off.
5. Unclick the two metal brackets on the side of the RAM, it’ll pop up, and you can slide it out. Do the same to the other RAM module and set them aside.
6. Put your new RAM in the same slots at an angle and then click them down and make sure they lock into place.
If you aren’t going to upgrade the SSD, you can just put the metal plate back on, screw it back in place and turn on the computer and you’re all set.
If you are upgrading both the RAM and SSD, you can leave the computer open and skip down to step 5 below.
Razer Blade Pro 17 Upgrade SSD (Empty Slot)
Now, if you want to upgrade the Razer Blade Pro 17 SSD, it’s basically the same steps as the RAM.
1. Turn off the computer.
2. Flip it over (it’s a good idea to put something soft under it so you don’t scratch the lid).
3. Unscrew the twelve hex screws holding in the metal plate and set them aside.
4. Using your fingers, pry up the bottom plate until it clicks off.
5. You should see the one empty M.2 SSD slot. Unscrew the screw locking it.
6. Put your new SSD in that slot and make sure it clicks in and locks down.
7. You can now just put the metal plate back on, screw it back in place.
8. Turn on the computer and confirm you can see the new harddrive in Disk Manager (type Repartition Hard Drive into the Windows search box at the bottom of your screen and click that to open Disk Manager).
9. You should see the original Disk 0 that is your original SSD but now there is also a new Disk 1 below it and it should prompt you to initialize the new drive first.
10. Once it does, right-click anywhere on the unallocated space of the new drive and select Format.
11. Then just follow the prompts to format it.
Eventually, it’ll show it as formatted and you’re all set.
Razer Blade Pro 17 Upgrade SSD (Both Slots)
Now, if you want to upgrade not just the empty M.2 slot but also replace the original 512GB SSD, follow this instead.
1. Turn off the computer.
2. Flip it over (it’s a good idea to put something soft under it so you don’t scratch the lid).
3. Unscrew the twelve hex screws holding in the metal plate and set them aside.
4. Using your fingers, pry up the bottom plate until it clicks off.
5. You should see the one empty M.2 SSD slot. Unscrew the screw locking it.
6. Put your new SSD in the same slot and make sure it clicks in and locks down.
7. You can now just put the metal plate back on, screw it back in place.
8. Turn on the computer and confirm you can see the new hard drive in Disk Manager (type Repartition Hard Drive into the Windows search box at the bottom of your screen and click that to open Disk Manager). In this case, though, don’t format it! We need it to stay unallocated for now.
9. Here’s where it gets a little different. We need to clone the 512GB drive onto the new SSD in the second slot so we don’t lose anything (including Windows which is installed on that drive). To do that, we’ll use the free cloning software we downloaded earlier.
10. Install that program then open it.
11. In the program, click the Clone System option on the left and it’ll ask you to select a destination drive. Select the new SSD (that should be empty). Select Advanced Options at the bottom and select Optimize for SSD. Then click Start.
12. Once it says that is done, turn off the laptop and follow steps 1-4 from earlier to open the laptop.
13. Using the Philips screwdriver, we’re going to remove both SSDs this time. The new one we just put in slot two, and the old one in slot one. So first, let’s put the new SSD that we just cloned everything to into the slot the pre-installed SSD was in before and screw that into place. Then set the original pre-installed on aside.
14. Take your second new SSD (a blank one) and put it in the now empty slot two and screw that into place.
15. You can now just put the metal plate back on and screw it back in place.
16. Turn on the computer and everything should be the same as before you took out the pre-installed SSD.
17. Open Disk Manager again and confirm you can see the new hard drive in Disk Manager as Disk 1 (type Repartition Hard Drive into the Windows search box at the bottom of your screen and click that to open Disk Manager).
18. Right-click anywhere on the unallocated new disk and select Format.
19. Then just follow the prompts to format it.
And there you go, you have both SSDs installed and should have everything you originally did on your pre-installed one.
Conclusion
Don’t forget to sell the old RAM and SSD once you confirm the new ones are working. Put them on eBay or craigslist or however you would sell a used electronic. Helps to cover some of the cost of the new memory.
Enjoy and follow me on social for more tech news and tutorials!
Im using all your info, as I just got a RBP17 UHD with 16gb RAM and 1TB SSD I bumped the RAM to 64GB OWC 2666 and installed another 2tb firecuda 510SSD now when trying to upgrade main 1tb SSD following your steps here I keep getting error telling me new 2tb SSD dosent have enough space. Going to ease US website they are prompting to download another app from them. Is that the only way or did I eff something up? razer works fine I just cant install ew SSD
Hi there,
So you did the following already, right?
Put a new 2TB SSD in the empty slot and formatted it etc so now you can see 3TBs in total (1TB for the original drive plus the new 2TB drive).
Then you tried to swap out the 1TB original drive and are at the step where you are trying to clone the 1TB over to the 2TB in order to copy Windows to it with the intention of then removing the 1TB and putting the 2TB on in its place and leaving slot 2 empty again.
That right? And then do you have a screenshot of the error the cloning tool is giving you? Also did you make sure that the 2TB drive is completely empty before doing this? Did you try to reformat the 2TB drive yet?
I dont hae a screen shot of error, but ill get one. and es the 2TBSSD was dead nuts empty. both drives where showing in my pc and when I checked in with ease us website, it was a common prob, thier solution was to download anther free app to move the FAT partition. if that makes sense.
Aw ok. If it’s a known thing then I’d try there solution so long as it’s free. If it’s not just Google for a cloning tool and you should be able to find another free one to try.
Thanks Dave, Im Richiefromboston and Jailbreak Overlander on youtube. If you ever need hit me up. rjcjr10@yahoo.com Bought the razer for editing with adobe PP 4 core envy was struggling with 4k drone footage etc.
Oh ya this won’t have that problem lol Good luck and awesome channel man!
It turns out the solution ease us offer as the solution to the apparently commn prob is 39.95 so Im going to see if I can find another way around. I have 3TB currently but would really like to install the other firecuda 510 2tb so I would have a total of 4TB storage
Ah okay, check for a free solution first and hopefully that’ll work. Good luck!
Hi there, thanks for the tutorial.
I have the 17 pro with 16GB RAM and 512 SSD – and I thought it would be fast for video editing (Premiere Pro) but it isn’t…
If I upgrade the RAM to 32GB, will that make a difference? Should I upgrade the SSD as well?
And if I do upgrade the RAM, do I just need one 16GB card?
Apologies if questions are basic…
Any general get-the-best-out-of-my-Pro17 advice would be gladly received.
Many thanks,
Henry
Upgrading the RAM will help a bit but what type of footage are you editing? What GPU do you have? And are you setting your playback resolution to 1/4 (or 1/8th?)?
I have NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB dedicated and 8GB shared.
I actaully just aligned Premiere with the high performance option using the graphics card, so hopefully that will make a difference? I’m afraid I’m far from a technical expert, I just want my video editing to be fast…
I use a mix of footage, with a fair amount of 4K. But it especially struggles with lots of layers.
Any optimisation tips you can give would be hugely appreciated. I’ve made playback 1/2 as it’s too grainy otherwise.
Thanks in advance for any help.
H
OK, that should be PLENTY. No need to upgrade the computer.
I’d suggest going into Windows Update and manually checking for updates and installing them over and over until it says there are none left (Windows sucks at proactively telling you about updates so this is the only way to ensure you have all of them).
Then open NVIDIA GeForce Experience and use that to update your drivers (also use the three dots on the right side of the driver download to select Studio drivers instead of game ones, they’re more reliable for editing).
Then open Adobe Cloud and update Premiere Pro, as well.
Then I would absolutely change the video playback resolution to 1/4th at least if not 1/8. It’s not blurry enough that you can’t see what is in the frame etc. and honestly, it only does that when you’re playing the footage. Soon as you pause it shows the full resolution so you can always use that when you need to look closer (which is how you would look closer any way I imagine).
Otherwise, I’d just look for more tips online for optimizing Premiere vs buying a new laptop as that should be plenty of power (again the RAM can’t hurt though but try those other things first).
Hey thanks man – really appreciate it. Done all that and it seems to have made a difference. I also think my hard drive connectors were no good – can that make a difference?
Anyway, many thanks again. I hope you and yours are coping ok during The Great Bizarreness.
Cheers, H
They can, and best to check them anyway if you can just so they don’t mess up in the middle of editing a long project etc.
Glad it helped some! Best of luck!
And thanks, hope you are, too!
Hi, I’m having and error issue that states: “System clone does not support cloning MBR disk to GPT or vice versa, please choose a disk with the same type or convert the target disk into the same type, and then try to clone again.”
You need to make sure that you are cloning from the same type of drive to the same type. Check the clone software site for more info.
I went to add a second drive into my blade 17, there was no screw present, do you know the size of screw required?
Sorry I don’t have the laptop so I can’t check. I’d suggest maybe bringing the laptop to a hardware store and just showing someone there so they can help you find one (or just buy a few that you think might fit and bring them home to try–screws are cheap). Good luck!
I used macrium reflect to clone my only ssd slot and replace it in my razer blade 15 advanced late 2019 model which came with a 512 gb ssd. The clone goes successfully and I replace my 512 gb with my 2 tb pny ssd and I get 0x000000f bcd needs to be repaired. For my C: drive in the pny ssd it only shows primary partition instead Healthy(boot, page file, crash dump and primary partition) which is on the original ssd. Do you think I messed up cloning?
Also, if I have games on origin, and steam, my game activations will be lost if I do a new windows os recovery install?
Not sure about that error sorry. As for the games you won’t lose them just make sure to sync with Steam and Origin first (contact them if you need help doing that).
Hey Dave, I was wondering if you could offer some sound advice help on how to upgrade my Razer Blade Pro 2017 (i7-7820HK, GTX 1080, 4K .I want to upgrade from the
2x Samsung SSD PM951 MZVLV256HCHP (RAID 0), 512 GB
, PCIe NVMe raid 0 ssd config to 4tb.info i would need is best suited 2tb ssd drives i assume samsung 860 or 970 evo ssds and how to redo the raid config setup from scratch with new ssd drives.your help is greatly appriciated. cheers Mark
Hi Mark, I linked to the SSDs I recommend above so check those out as for the cloning of the raid drives maybe check out this article from the creators of the program I mention in the video – https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/clone-raid.html
Good luck!
So this may be obvious to people with experience in these matters . . . on the motherboard in the blank SSD slot of my RPro there is a black foam pad. Not the thinnest pad ever. Am I supposed to peel it off before putting an SSD in that slot, or is the new SSD supposed to squish the pad down? I noticed in the video that there’s a sticker on the board under the second SSD slot, but no such pad. Thermal pad, maybe? Weird. I’m happy to try to peel it off to install the SSD…
So that seems like a new thing, but my guess is it’s a thermal pad and you can just put the SSD on top of it, squish it down, and lock the SSD in place as normal. Just to be sure though, I’d recommend just shooting Razer Support a message to confirm that that is what it is.
Good luck!