Screwing it in is just a precaution to make sure that the drive doesn’t get dislodged if you accidentally bump into your PC or something. M.2 Drives don’t really need to be screwed down flat onto the motherboard, they temporarily (!) work perfectly fine just hovering at an angle of 30°.

These are some tips to make it work (temporarily), but I don’t recommend doing them if at all possible, and if you do, make sure that you don’t just leave it like that. Just make sure you don’t destroy anything by trying to jam in a screw that’s way too big. Tape the M.2 Drive Down If you’re handy at all in any way, you most likely have an assortment of screws you’ve collected over the years.

4 Comments

M.2 storage devices are classified numerically based on performance. The higher the Class, the faster the overall performance: Get some actual M.2 screws and do it right. But in the meantime… Look for Old Small Screws in Your Home So you don’t need to screw them in, but it’s such a simple and easy safety measure, there’s no point not doing it.

So give it a search and see if you can find something. You probably won’t find something perfect, but even a close enough fit is fine. M.2 screws, a relatively new addition to the menagerie of things that you have to screw into your motherboard. Now, sometimes, we just have to wing it and find a way to make it work. You’re missing that M.2 screw but you still want to finish setting up your PC now, and not in 3 days when the new screw arrives, right? M3X3 screw(most computers include these. These secure the Y1WJX M.2 drive carrier, or a 2.5" drive into 745TM)So if you want to buy some screws for M.2 standoffs, what you need are M2 screws. Specifically, you want to get the following M.2 screw size: “ M2x3mm“. MacGyver it (Not Recommended) This is certainly not recommended for any serious or long-term use, but can be done for short sessions of data copying or if your screw is arriving the next day. FAQ Do You Need a Standoff for M.2 SSDs?

If you just want to make sure the drive stays where you put it and want something that’s lowkey. This is an option. Yes, this is a possibility, but one that should be done with utmost care, if you don’t want to loose your data or fry you parts mid-session. Each screw size is described using two numbers – the ‘M’ number and a number indicating the length of the shank, in mm, so M2 screw dimensions of M2 x8, are 8mm long, measured under the screw head. M2 screws are available in a wide range of materials including steel, stainless steel, brass, nylon, aluminium and titanium as well as exotic materials including Duplex, Super Duplex and Inconel. As the name implies, they’re screws designated to screw in M.2 drives into your motherboard. And they can be a right nuisance at times because they have a tendency to magically disappear when you actually need them.

The original SATA protocol was designed to maximize the performance of platter (physical spinning) hard drives. With the proliferation of SSD drives, the SATA storage management protocol has become a limiting factor. The NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory) protocol has been designed for solid state drives and uses the PCIe bus for optimal performance. An M.2 drive may support SATA or PCIe/NVMe but not both. Depending on the drive, and what the computer can support, not all M.2 drives work in all computers. So there’s a non-zero chance that there might be a screw that could fit an M.2 standoff in your collection.