You don't need to be a PC builder to do this job, and most people finish it in a quarter of an hour with nothing more than a small screwdriver. The drive slides into its slot at an angle, gets pressed flat and held down by a single screw, and then needs a couple of clicks in Windows before it shows up as a usable drive.
The part people get wrong usually happens before the screwdriver comes out. A drive that's the wrong length or uses the wrong kind of slot won't work no matter how carefully you fit it, so we'll start with three quick checks.
3 Checks Before You Buy
1. Check the Length
Those four digits printed on M.2 drives, like 2280, are just the width and length in millimeters. So a 2280 drive is 22mm across and 80mm long, about the size of a stick of gum, and that's what almost every desktop board and most laptops are built for. Thin laptops and handheld PCs such as the Steam Deck use the much shorter 2230. Your manual will say which one fits.
2. Check the Slot Type and PCIe Generation
A few laptops from around 2015 to 2018 have M.2 slots that only take the older SATA type of drive, and an NVMe drive simply won't be seen in one of those, so it's worth confirming first. After that, look at the PCIe generation. A Gen 4 drive works fine in a Gen 3 slot, it just runs at Gen 3 speed, so there's no harm in buying newer than your board.
3. Shared Lanes
This one catches people out. Motherboards only have so many data lanes to hand out, and on plenty of desktop boards the second or third M.2 slot borrows them from a couple of SATA ports. Fill that slot and those ports go dead. We've seen people lose an old hard drive full of photos this way, so if you have drives plugged into SATA, read the M.2 page in your board's manual before you pick a slot.
What You Need
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You'll need a Phillips #0 or #1 screwdriver. Many new boards use a tool less latch instead, which saves a step.
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Remember the little M.2 screw, which is generally a M2x3mm screw. This screw comes along with the motherboard and not with the SSD; hence, do not discard that little packet of screws.
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Put on an antistatic wrist band, or else make a practice of touching any bare metal portion of the casing before handling the drive.
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Have the motherboard/laptop user manual handy, either the printed one or the PDF from the manufacturer's website.
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If you're planning to install an SSD that would serve as your boot drive, then have a USB drive with Windows installation package handy too.
How to Install an M.2 SSD in a Desktop
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Shut the PC down, flip the switch on the back of the power supply to off and unplug the power cable. Then press the case power button once, which drains any charge left in the system.
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Lay the case on its side and take off the side panel. In most cases that means two thumbscrews at the back.
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Find the M.2 slot. It's usually between the CPU socket and the graphics card, and many boards hide it under a flat metal heatsink with the M.2 logo on it.
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Remove the heatsink from the board and then detach it. Turn it around and take note of the thermal pad which will appear. There is likely to be a plastic film on top of it when the board is new, so do remove it or else the drive will not work.
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Look at the end of the slot and see the brass or plastic post known as the standoff. The boards will have small numbers like 42, 60 and 80 next to the possible holes, and when using a 2280 drive, the standoff must be in the 80 hole.
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Pick the drive up with your hands holding the edges and looking at the sticker on it. Push the gold side into the slot at an angle which is similar to a laptop screen which has been half-closed.
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Press the far end down onto the standoff and fit the screw. Snug is enough here, because overtightening can crack the drive's circuit board.
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Screw the heatsink back on over the drive. Its pad should press down on the SSD's chips.
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Now the side panel can go back on. Plug the power cable in, flick the switch on the power supply and boot up.
Gen 4 and Gen 5 drives run warm under heavy loads, so keep that heatsink in place. A drive like the Digiera LNV480 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD is a typical choice for a desktop with a Gen 4 slot. If your board supports Gen 5, our LNV500 sits at the top of the range.
Installing an M.2 SSD in a Laptop
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Look up your laptop model first. A quick search for your model number plus "SSD upgrade" usually turns up a teardown video, which tells you if there's a free slot and how long a drive it takes.
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Do a full shut down rather than sleep, then pull out the charger and close the lid.
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Turn it over and remove the screws on the bottom panel. Watch out for a screw or two hiding under the rubber feet. A plastic pry tool, or an old guitar pick, pops the clips loose without leaving marks.
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Before your fingers go anywhere near the SSD, unplug the battery. It's usually a flat cable with a small connector you can ease out with a fingernail.
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Swapping out the old drive? Undo its single screw and it'll pop up at an angle, ready to slide out. Hang on to any pad or foil shield that was stuck to it.
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The new drive goes in the same way, at an angle first and then pressed down for the screw. That pad or shield you kept goes back on top.
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Reconnect the battery, refit the bottom panel and screw it down.
Older laptops often have Gen 3 slots, and the Digiera CNV300 NVMe SSD is a PCIe 3.0 drive that matches them without paying for speed the laptop can't use.
Set Up the New Drive in BIOS and Windows
A new SSD comes completely blank, so even after it's fitted, Windows won't show it in File Explorer until you set it up.
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Tap Delete or F2 as the PC starts up and you'll land in the BIOS. You're only looking here, so find the storage or NVMe page, check the new drive is listed, then leave without changing anything.
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Back in Windows, right click Start and open Disk Management. Windows notices the blank drive and pops up a box asking you to initialize it.
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Leave it on GPT, which is the right choice for any PC made in the last ten years, and click OK.
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The new disk shows a black bar labeled Unallocated. Right click it, choose New Simple Volume and click Next through the wizard, since the defaults are fine.
After a few seconds the drive turns up in File Explorer with a letter of its own, ready to use. Microsoft's guide to initializing new disks covers the same steps along with the PowerShell version.
Adding a Second Drive vs Replacing Your Boot Drive
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Adding a second drive
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Replacing your boot drive
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What you do
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Install it in a free slot and set it up in Disk Management
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Swap out the drive Windows runs from
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Windows
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Stays where it is
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Clone the old drive or do a fresh install from USB
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BIOS changes
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None needed
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Set the new drive first in the boot order
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Best for
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More room for games and files
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A faster system or a bigger main drive
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Replacing the boot drive leaves you two routes. We lean toward a fresh Windows install, since you lose years of leftover clutter, but cloning is far quicker if you'd rather not set up every app again. Got a spare M.2 slot? Put the new drive in it, clone across while both are installed, and pull the old one out afterwards.
5 Reasons Your New M.2 SSD Is Not Detected
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The drive isn't fully seated. If it went in at the wrong angle, its contacts may only be half in the slot. Take it out and push it in again until the gold edge disappears into the connector.
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The slot is SATA only or has its lanes disabled. Check the manual to see whether that slot supports NVMe and whether something else, often a SATA port or a second graphics slot, is sharing its lanes.
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Windows hasn't initialized it. A brand new drive won't appear in File Explorer until you initialize it in Disk Management, which catches out more people than any hardware fault.
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The BIOS is set to RAID or VMD mode. Some Intel laptops ship with this on, and the Windows installer then can't see the drive until you load the storage driver from the laptop maker's support page.
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The BIOS needs an update. Older boards sometimes don't recognize newer or larger drives until they get a firmware update.
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Still deciding on a drive? You can compare capacities and PCIe generations across Digiera's internal SSDs.
FAQs
How long does it take to install an M.2 SSD?
Fitting the drive itself takes about 15 minutes in a desktop, and a bit longer in a laptop because of the bottom panel. Disk Management only needs another two or three minutes after that. Cloning or reinstalling Windows is what eats the time, so give yourself an evening if you're doing either.
Which screw holds an M.2 SSD in place?
It's a tiny M2x3mm screw, and the slightly annoying part is that it usually comes in the motherboard box rather than with the SSD. Lost it? A local computer shop will almost always have spares, and plenty of newer boards use a twist latch so you won't need one.
Does an M.2 NVMe SSD need a heatsink?
Gen 4 and Gen 5 drives benefit from one, since they slow down when they get hot during long transfers. You probably already have one, because most desktop boards bolt a heatsink over the main slot, and older Gen 3 drives rarely need it.
Will an M.2 SSD fit in my laptop?
That comes down to your exact model. Plenty of thin laptops, including every recent MacBook, have the storage soldered on with no slot at all. If yours does have a slot, the teardown video or spec sheet will tell you whether it takes NVMe and how long a drive fits.
Do I need to reinstall Windows after installing an M.2 SSD?
You don't if you're adding a second drive, because Windows stays on the old one. It's only when the new SSD takes over as the boot drive that you have to choose between cloning and a fresh install.
Does it matter which M.2 slot I use?
It can. On most desktop boards the slot nearest the CPU is wired straight to the processor, and that's the fast one. The others usually hang off the chipset, and they're the ones that may borrow lanes from your SATA ports. Use the top slot for your main drive.
