There are many reasons to replace a SSD from a production device. Anything from extending lifecycle for the rest of the unit as the SSD W/R is heavily utilized, you might need a larger storage for your device or even maybe your device is having a “case of the Mondays“. Although the latter is rather rare – it is still a valid reason: Some SSDs just die.
More valid might be a separate use-case: Repurpose device between personas or shipping the device for maintenance/service at a different facility without worrying about sensitive data that might be persistent on your storage device. Yes, you may use the Microsoft Surface Data Eraser Tool to secure removal of data, but…
Back to the more productive side – assume you bought a 128/256gb SSD with a heavy taxation on your disk – or that it simply rendered too small. Both I and Microsoft (no, we are not married) recommend that you replace your existing Surface SSD with one from their Repair & Replacement Parts selection (Microsoft Surface Repair & Replacement Parts – Microsoft Store) in their official store – this is not available in all countries (lets say, Norway). Some of the benefits are that this SSD unit comes pre-assembled with a cooling enclosure that improves durability and performance of the SSD – and ensure that it matches the performance expected in your Surface. And yes, it is not that easy to find a 2230 size M.2 SSD that matches those found in your Surface either.
What to choose – disk, cooling, tooling?!
Okay, let’s cut to the case: I have a Surface 10 Pro with a 256gb SSD where I used ~75% of the disk. Some of that is reserved for the operating system, page file, hibernation file and just system maintenance. Knowing that an additional part is taxed when Windows is upgraded from 23H2 to 24H2 for shorter periods of time adds temporary to the usage – and – as my Surface Pro 10 is shipped with the Intel Core Ultra 5 135U that provide NPU options I faced some new challenges when it came to storage – AI models and tooling are thirsty for more than just power, storage is consumed in tens of gigabytes easily.
When I discovered that Microsoft weren’t shipping their official spare parts to Norway I browsed Amazon for SSDs and cooling data from the existing SSD to the new. Yes I could use DISM /Capture-Image and save the ~200gb image file to an external storage, swap the disk, and then use this pre-made script to apply the generated WIM, but since I had a external M.2 enclosure from Dockase and wanted to shave some time f the process too. I landed on the Corsair MP600 Mini 1TB due to TLC over QLC and it’s performance-capacity-price ratio. For cooling, I noted that many talked about the difference in height of the storage unit and the controller – so finding a thermal pad that attached the cooling device for both was top-of-mind. After some searching, a thermal rib and pad- pack was found.
Are your going to change your disk or just talk, Alex?
After receiving all the components I used Partition Master from EaseUS, a solid vendor in disk management that also let me resize the recovery partition on the fly. EaseUS let you generate a bootable USB (or ISO) for the cloning process – generating a boot.wim (WinPE) with their own servicing tool on top. This was a major bonus, as the Surface Pro 10 needed some additional drivers to detect the SSD in WinPE.
Now if you are having a zero-trust approach to replacing your SSD – I would strongly recommend using DISM capture-apply or BRM recovery for a clean start. Any third party vendor is is a potential source of risk.
Adding drivers to WinPE
To resolve this, simply download the official driver pack from Microsofts own websites and extracted it’s content to a dedicated folder:
msiexec /a c:\Tools\SurfacePro10forBusiness_Win11_22631_24.092.27354.0.msi targetdir=C:\Tools\SurfacePro10Drivers /qn
After extracting the drives, I needed to inject these into the boot.wim that EaseUS generated for our bootable media:
# Define the path to the boot.wim file and the mount directory
$wimFilePath = "D:\Sources\BOOT.WIM"
$mountDir = "C:\tools\mount"
# Mount the WIM file
dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:$wimFilePath /index:1 /MountDir:$mountDir
# Check if the mount was successful
if ($?) {
Write-Output "The WIM file has been successfully mounted to $mountDir"
} else {
Write-Output "Failed to mount the WIM file."
}
Add-WindowsDriver -Path $mountDir -Driver C:\Tools\SurfacePro10Drivers -Recurse
Dismount-WindowsImage -Path $mountDir –SaveAssembling cooling and thermal pads to SSD and installation
Adding the thermal pads to that evens the connection to the heat sink – and adding additional thermal padding to the SSDs back side is done to even the SSD when fitting it into it’s disk slot of the Surface Pro 10. To access the SSD, simply press down the short edge of the cover and it will pop-up for you to be removed.
Summarize
As seen on the pictures, ensure that you have a charger available, as it is required to revive the device after a deep-power off initiated by removing the SSD.
The third option of installing the OS on your new SSD that I never mentioned is to perform a Bare Metal Recovery (BMR), an image you may download from the Microsoft Surface IT Toolkit or website, however, this will provide you with a fresh installation of Windows, while DISM, EaseUS or any other backup/recovery tool will preserve your current data and installation state.
The old SSD? It’s kept as a spare for future use – or if I ever need a second installation for travels to insecure locations.
Voila! Your Surface is ready until next oil change interval!
- Alex