I have an old HP Probook laptop. Works a lot better with a cheap 2.5" SATA ssd in. Quieter too!
@jorismak I will take you up on the offer since I am both busy and tired. See: Linux box essentials - #21 by afre.
EliteBooks aren’t that bad. These days at least they offer nice bang for buck in the ultra book space often solid strong bodies.
No clue if that’s true from one of the core i5 5xxx era.
The screen was bad from reviews. Not that bright and terrible sRGB coverage. Be aware when doing photo stuff on it.
The i5 5xxx is older now , but see it like this. From the 4000u series to the 7000u series not much changed, and they were all dualcores, even the i7 models. Yes, the 6000u serie was a small bump up in performance, but it’s still quite better than 2000/3000 series. It’s a 14nm cpu even.
They have displayport right? I see that as a plus. Hdmi is used on tv’s, displayport is used on computers 
(read that a bit tongue in cheek please, not too serious).
About SSDs. It’s a bit unclear. You have a model with a 500gb 2.5" sata hdd inside of it.
So, a 2.5" sata ssd will fit and work for sure. It replaces the hdd in the same space in the laptop body.
I’m seeing models of the same generation that shipped with a ssd pre-installed, with the M2 form factor. So I think the laptop has space for a M2 ssd as well. But, the ssd options that came with the laptop were all of the sata M2 variant (the ‘fake’ M2 SSDs from my story above). So I’m doubting if the laptop will support NVMe SSDs.
I’m also doubting if it will be worthwhile to chase this down. The laptop isn’t one of the fastest around. A SSD will always help in making the system feel more responsive and faster, but if it’s worth it to go above +/- 550mb/sec, I don’t think so. Your choice of course.
So you might have room for two SSDs in there. A 2.5" sata SSD will always fit.
If you really want to be sure a sata M2 SSD will fit, post pictures from the inside after opening up the bottom.
If a NVMe ssd will work, I doubt it. If you have a real complete model number (a SKU number or something, of this specific configuration. There were tons of ‘EliteBook 840 g2’ laptops across the years 
). Maybe something on a sticker at the bottom?
Do you have a favorite computer parts store where I can browse a bit (English?) to list some options that are in stock?
Like i said, the ‘crucial mx500’ series is always nice in sata laptops. But that series is available in both 2.5" sata version, and in M2 sata version. So you still need to watch what you are buying :).
I am mostly interested in the m2 solely because I haven’t gotten one before (there appears to be a space but it was covered, so I don’t know there connection) and I have no time to think about it or do the research. SSD and everything else is okay. If you have read any of my posts here, I have not lived under a rock and may be getting into IT soon depending on the screening/interview. No offense taken though, just letting you know.
Best Buy or Canada Computers would be my go-to walk-in stores. I am Canadian and apparently say sorry and eh all the time. 
If someone talks about anxiety about choosing pc parts, I start describing stuff. If you don’t want it, just skip over it, it’s all good :).
M2 ssd, sata connection is what I advise. It’s hard to tell if nvme will work, and I don’t think you’ll get much benefit from it in this machine.
https://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=179_1927_1928&sf=:2_2,3_11,3_12&mfr=&pr=
I filtered on 500gb for no special reason. But you see that some models are crazy more expensive (Samsung 860 Evo, mx500… Probably because it are older models with less stock). The wd blue is not known to be a good performer.
But, good news. I think I found the HP support image for your odel series.
https://support.hp.com/id-en/document/c04552057
It lists a pci-e m2 ssd as an option. Which means you probably support NVMe gen3 Ssds.
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In NVMe world, the ‘wd blue sn500’ is actually a good performing budget option, as are the Intel 660 models.
From a Dutch review site for reference :
It’s a trace (so a real world repeatable disk benchmark) that is doing some lightroom and photoshop actions.
You’ll see that modern Ssds are quickly all in the region ‘more than fast enough’ as long as it has some sort of on disk caching.
Sorry for the grumpiness earlier. Too much reading for my poor eyes and was dealing with a serious and urgent issue at the time of posting.
Findings: the slot is for a flash cache, supports SATA but requires a bios update that may or may not work and still not be bootable. According to various sources, it would likely a world of trouble since this laptop was conceived in a time of actualization for M.2. Also, the slot only has space for 42 and 60 mm lengths.
So I’m more and more leaning towards ‘get a 2.5" sata ssd’ according to budget.
It will work for sure, and they are still a massive upgrade from harddrives.
I just upgraded from a similar system.
Old one:
Xubuntu 18.04
AMD A8-7600 8GB RAM
NVIDIA GTX-1060 6GB
New one:
Xubuntu 20.04
AMD Ryzen 5600X, 16GB DDR4 RAM 3200
NVIDIA GTX-1060 6GB
Gave me an enourmous performance boost in darktable. When I edit a photo the calculation times are almost not noticeable.
There was a thread about darktable perfomance a while ago with a standardized RAW with XMP:
You just have to replace http with https in the original link for the files.
The last test with an older system was:
AMD® A8-7600 radeon r7, 4GB RAM
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
- CPU: 87,830 secs (320,479 CPU)
- OpenCL: 9,301 secs (14,804 CPU)
Today I tried the test again with the new Ryzen 5 system:
- CPU: 6,174 secs (69,196 CPU)
- OpenCL: 3,835 secs (7,842 CPU)
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That’s quite a speed boost on the new system, even the OpenCL seems to be quicker!
I’m still tossing up CPU choices, Ryzen 7 3700X with 8 cores, 16 threads? Or drop down to Ryzen 5 5600X with 6 (faster?) cores, 12 threads?
AMDs CPU numbering system is somewhat confusing!
Anyway, current benchmark timings:
CPU: 37.665 secs (119.716 CPU)
OpenCL: 6.105 secs (11.185 CPU)
Not that confusing right? The 5xxx is newer and faster per core than the 3xxx series. For the money you can only decide if you are more served with more cores VS less but faster cores.
A few simple notes that maybe make it easier for you. If there is also gaming to be done on the machine, pick the 5600x, no question.
The 3700x is faster in tasks that utilize all cores, but only marginally. If there are a few moments in a task where not all cores can be utilized, the 5600x will perform equal or even better.
So for darktable, you might be better of with a 3700x, but the difference is so small that you might be better of with a 5600x overal.
You will not be buying a slow system in either of the two cases.
Edit: if there is also opencl and a gpu involved, the single core performance of the 5600x might be better suited to ‘feed’ the gpu, but im guessing here.
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I would lean toward the newer chip but that’s just me. That is, if it works well with the other existing or prospective components AND with your linux box, software and firmware.
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Anyway here is a bundle I’ve priced up based on a Ryzen 7, 3700X and 32gb of ram.
Motherboard is part of bundle, hence no price on it.
I have a laptop with Ryzen 9 5900HX and a discrete Radeon RX6800M. There’s no cdrom, no flash reader, just room for cooling inside. It seems to scream along. The style is for gaming, with the illuminating keyboard and side panel effects. I have mine set so that the cpu load shows up on the side panels, the cpu temp in the front, and a four out-of-phase undulating waves in the keycaps oscillating between blue-indigo-purple. It gives gently vibrant visibility in the dark. I’ve got it for course work until next year, when my daughter gets to have it.
8 cores, 16 logical cpu’s @ 3.3 GHz turbos up to 5GHz on demand. 
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Although I thought that Ryzen 9 had 12 cores?
The desktop ‘X’ chip spec does, and it also eats 2x the power to run them.
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Feeling a bit more brave, I’m now considering just buying the components individually, and assembling them myself, rather than buying a preassembled “bundle”.
So I’ve currently got the following lot sitting in a shopping basket at my preferred supplier of computer parts (Overclockers UK)
1 x Gigabyte B550M S2H (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £79.99
1 x AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £259.99
1 x be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler - 120mm= £39.95
1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey= £124.99
Total: £515.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)
Alternatively, changing to the Ryzen 5, 5600X
1 x [Gigabyte B550M S2H (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard] £79.99
1 x [be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler - 120mm] £39.95
1 x [Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey] £124.99
1 x [AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail] £269.99
Total: £525.42 (includes shipping: £10.50)
Decisions, decisions.
New stuff bought, should be here next week sometime.
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit
Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo Black/White CPU Cooler - 2 x 120mm
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)
Seagate 2TB Barracuda HDD 7200RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST2000DM008)
MSI B550M PRO-VDH WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard
I know the Ryzen 7 3700x comes with a cpu cooler, however I value quietness as well as cooling ability! Hence the Arctic Freezer 34, which with dual 120mm fans should keep things nice and cool and quiet!
I’m happy for you. I hope assembly all goes smoothly and you are happy with the final result. Based on the specs of what you purchased, you should see a very good improvement in processing ability.
However lack of any Solid State storage will negatively impact your user experience, I fear. Are you re-using an existing SSD for OS and cache?
Do please let us know how you get on.
I am also interested in the final build and whether you are reusing parts.
The price looks good too. In my corner, this could easily be 2.5x. 