Thermal paste, a prying tool, and rubbing alcohol are not obligatory as it depends on how detailed you want to be with the replacement. Microsoft ships its SSD in a metal enclosure for protection, functioning additionally as a heat sink. It uses a small amount of thermal paste sandwiched between the drive and the casing. SSDs typically do not produce that much heat (compared to a CPU or GPU), so the benefit is likely minimal.

Please also note that the usable space for this drive is 867GB (rest of the space WD already allocated to overprovisioning so it is not accessible by the user. This is done to some extent on all SSDs).Since the replacement SSD does not have an OS, you will need to reinstall Windows 11 after the swap. The easiest way is to load Microsoft's official Surface Pro 8 recovery files to a USB drive, as this gives you all the necessary drivers for Surface Pro 8. Doing so restores Surface Pro 8 to its factory state. Revitalize and expand the storage of your M.2 2230 SSD compatible laptop such as many Microsoft ® Surface and Dell™ models. The speculation here is that allocated space is used for Xbox Series X|S storage, and it can't be recovered. The "CH" denotes something unique about these, which is they are often used in the Xbox Series X|S. That's why so many of them are listed as "refurbished" or "pre-owned." PCN support – All generational changes and firmware updates are handled through a controlled and timed process

Some people mount the M.2 SSD directly, but it may rattle due to the thinness without the enclosure. Users can add a shim to stop the rattle or put the new SSD into the old enclosure with (or without) adding the thermal paste. A typical 1TB SSD usually has 952GB of available storage with around 913GB available after Windows 11 is installed versus the 823GB you'll have (with Windows 11) in one of these Western Digital drives. That's a loss of about 90GB. Take your large game library wherever you are with up to 2TB 1 of trusted Western Digital TLC NAND storage.

Resources

Design-in SSDs incorporate advanced controllers that automatically perform wear-levelling, garbage collection and other NAND Flash management features. They are a drop-in replacement for hard drives and deliver up to 20x greater performance as well as high reliability. Design-in SSDs incorporate next-generation 3D NAND Flash. Key Benefits The first reason is self-evident. You bought a Surface Pro 8 with 128 or 256GB of storage, and you want more. Maybe you want 512GB or even 1TB. Get ready for an immersive experience with exclusive gaming features including PCIe ® Gen 4.0 3, Western Digital's nCache™ 4.0 Technology, and Microsoft’s DirectStorage Support. Now that the new SSD is in place, you need to reinstall Windows 11. It is recommended to have Surface Pro 8 plugged in for AC power during this process (don't power it on yet until step 2 below): The process is simple. We're going to wipe and configure the USB drive to be bootable and then copy over the Surface Pro 8 + Windows 11 recovery files to it. Here's how: