This ASUS ROG Ally Mod Lets You Install Full-Size M.2 SSDs If You're Daring
Someone has managed to squeeze a full-fat 2280 M.2 SSD inside the new ROG Ally with some clever drilling. Photos of the mod demonstrate that upgrading the Ally to 2280 formfactor SSDs is surprisingly easy to do and doesn’t require massive alterations to the chassis to support the larger drive size. All you need is a bit of courage and the willingness to void your warranty.
We’ve seen SSD mods in the past on handled gaming machines like the Steam Deck, but nothing close to this SSD mod for the ROG Ally. With this mod, users can upgrade Ally’s 512GB 2230 SSD to a larger 2280 SSD, which is usually cheaper owing to the formfactor's overwhelming popularity. Storage capacity is also greater with 2280 drives, allowing the Ally to house 4TB and 8TB SSDs.
As previously stated, the mod is surprisingly easy to do, only requiring minor adjustments to the Ally’s clamshell. All the modder had to do was cut out a few plastic bits of the Ally’s bottom plastic shell, to allow a 2280 size SSD to fit length-wise inside the chassis as well as move a few of the wireless antennas to another location. The default SSD would only extend halfway down the chassis, but with the mod, larger 2280-sized SSDs have enough room to extend all the way down to the bottom of the casing.
Finally, the new SSD had to be encased in thermal tape and a thermal pad to properly protect and cool the drive while it is running inside the handheld gaming PC. When put all together, the mod looks really clean almost as if Asus intended to put 2280 sizes drives in the ROG Ally. The fit and finish of the mod couldn’t be any better; if there was just 1mm less clearance, the drive would not fit.
According to performance benchmarks by the modder, 2280-sized drives will run very well inside the ROG Ally, thanks in no small part to the thermal modifications. The modder used a Crucial P3 Plus 4TB for testing and found the drive outperformed its 4.8GB/s read and 4.1GB/s write specifications in CrystalDiskMark, outputting a respectable 5.0GB/s in read speeds and 4.4GB/s in write speeds. Temperatures were very good as well, sitting at 47C on the Windows desktop. He did not test the drive under a gaming workload, but with how good the drive already performs on the desktop, there’s little reason to doubt that performance will be great while gaming.
Thankfully there are plenty of other ways to add storage to the ROG Ally without resorting to mods. The console already features a UHS-II microSD card reader that will give you an additional 1TB of storage with the right microSD card. The console also has a USB Type-C port that can be used to hook up external storage devices for extra game storage. However, nothing comes close to this mod if you want industry leading SSD capacities and speeds for the ROG Ally.
