Nah, I wouldn't use an expresscard, it is too slow, I have installed a mPCIe to M.2 NVME adapter instead, it should be a lot faster, I will get that 2230 NVME SSD one day, preferably Gen 3.
4980HQ has a huge 128 MB L4 cache, much better iGPU and faster base & boost clocks.
I tried to tinker...