I will be buying the above laptop this weekend and I want to put an M.2 SSD in it. My preference would be the 500GB Samsung EVO. I have read however that the laptop only supports a maximum of 256GB M.2 SSDs. Is this true, and if so why? Thanks.
'EVO' is a 2.5" SATA drive, not M.2 PCIE. You want the "950 Pro M.2" or SM951. HM170 should support 512GB drives. Do not use a SATA drive in the M.2 slot - the VW is exclusively PCIE. It's the older JX is SATA M.2 (https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/GL552JX/ vs https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/GL552VW/) It states 256GB on the page because that's all ASUS offers. It's not a chipset maximum.
Samsung EVO M.2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147399 The Asus websites says up to 256GB but i agree, this can be read in 2 ways. But I have read elsewhere that the max is 256GB. Just want to confirm before I splash the cash.
Wow I have never seen that before! In a word - no it won't work regardless of size, because it's SATA, not PCIE. The VX only has PCIE M.2 slot. You want the JX if you want to use SATA M.2.