SABRENT Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 256GB High Performance PCIe 4.0 M.2 2230 SSD [SB-2130-256]

I had read a lot of horror stories about upgrading the M.2 NVMe drive on the Surface Pro 8 (SP8). There were a lot of stories about overheating and BSOD when trying to re-install Windows. When I saw this Sabrent drive advertised on Amazon it specifically said Surface Pro compatible and that it ran cool, so I took a chance on it. I am very pleased with the result.I'll do the TL;DR part up front:I upgraded my 256GB M.2 Drive on my Surface Pro 8 with the 1 TB Sabrent Rocket 2230 NVMe M.2 drive, and the drive runs great at PCIe 4.0 Speeds according to CrystalMark 8. No BSOD and runs under 50 Celsius *EDIT*: Under maximum load, about 35 degrees celcius degrees idle/normal operations *END EDIT* according to CrystalDiskInfo 8. I was able to copy all of my files using Acronis partitioning software you get to use free from Sabrent when you purchase their drive.If you want to know exactly how I copied everything over without ever having to go into the BIOS, keep reading:UPFRONT DISCLAIMER: You will need to purchase three things to do this upgrade if you don't have them already. Two of them you would need anyway if you were to upgrade like Microsoft suggests: #4 Torx screwdriver/bit, thermal compound, and an external NVMe drive enclosure.1) First I did purchase an external NVMe enclosure to copy the old drive to the new one. You can find them on Amazon for under $30 US. You need to make sure the enclosure can take 2230 size drives. I got one that had USB C to USB C cable and was thunderbolt compatible. Another consideration is that after you swap the NVMe drives you can use the enclosure with your old drive and have another high speed hard drive to back stuff up on, although I found you will need an NVMe thermal pad/heatsink for the old drive or it can overheat.2) After reading about BSOD NVMe upgrade horror stories on the SP8 it lead me to articles talking about AHCI Link Power Management - HIPM/DIPM. HIPM/DIPM power management is not on by default and you actually have to do a Windows registry edit to make it available. There are some good guides on how to do this via a quick google search. I recommend you enable it and turn the feature on.3) I had to disable drive encryption before copying files over (it is on by default). You can either disable encryption or get a USB encryption key. I chose to decrypt the drive which will take hours depending on how much data you have on the drive. You can re-encrypt once everything is over to the new drive.THIS NEXT PART IS WHERE MOVING FILES OVER AND GETTING WINDOWS SETEP ON THE NEW DRIVE DIFFERS FROM WHAT MICROSOFT WANTS YOU TO DO.4) I cannot stress enough the kudos to Sabrent for having their own disk partition software. Acronis, which you can get from Sabrent's website, will copy all of your files over for you verbatim; no reinstalling necessary. Follow the disk cloning prompts, and the best part is it will automatically increase the size of your main windows drive to maximum while keeping your boot partition and recovery partition intact (just make sure you chose the correct cloning prompt). Acronis alone makes it worth it to go with Sabrent.5) The SP8 comes with a front and back metal sleave for the NVMe drive. YOU WILL NEED a #4 Torx screwdriver bit (very tiny!) to unscrew the drive and screw it back in. The metal casing snaps off (do so gently so as not to bend the casing). I cleaned off the thermal compound the old drive had, put in the Sabrent drive, re-applied some CPU thermal compound I already had, and put the casing back together, then screwed it back into the SP8. A lot of videos show using a thermal pad instead of re-using the Microsoft drive enclosure. I think the drive enclosure helps distribute heat evenly back into the SP8 chassis.I turned the SP8 on and it recognized me with all of my files intact without ever having to go into the BIOS the first time. I have been running normally for almost two weeks and not a single issue. Drive runs cool and fast. Works great and couldn't be happier.I hope this helps you out if you are on the fence!

perfect for the steam deck use, have had this for nearly 2 years now. Still works at peak performance and I have had zero issues! Installation process is relatively painless too.

Nice clean looking dockCurrent setup is the Rog Ally Z1XRunning to a 1080p ultra wide (1440p as well)I have the original 65w Ally charger which works just fine for me and still able to achieve 30w TURBOI'm running a m.2 external drive off the type c,2 out of the 3 USB 3.0 for mouse and keyboard dongleShe's smooth easy to pack and travelOnly thing was the JSAUX BACKPLATE along with aScreen protector made it a snug fitWould highly recommend

SP8 original SSD/ 256GB upgrade to 2(1.81) TB Sabrenet SSD,I recently upgraded the SSD on my Surface Pro 8 using a Sabrenet drive, and I wanted to share my experience. I’m not a professional technician, just an enthusiast tinkering with my device. That said, here’s how it went for me: [insert your experience here].Disclaimer: This is just my personal account, not professional advice. I’m not responsible for any issues, damages, or problems that might happen if you try this yourself. Proceed at your own risk, and make sure you know what you’re doing or consult a professional!I got a backup of all my valuable files in a separate flash drive before going through the upgrade.Failed Attempts using WD SSD,First, I purchased a WD 2TB SSD. I created a backup flash drive by downloading the Windows Software from the Microsoft Website using my SP8 serial number. Then, I used Windows's native "Recovery Drive" to create a recovery image on the flash drive and added the downloaded Windows Software to the same drive. I swapped the OEM SSD with WD hardware on SP8 and rebooted it. The PC kept rebooting and rebooting, never being able to pass the reboot. I tried the above many times more with the following attempts.One time, I used only the downloaded Windows image, copied to the flash drive, changed the SSD hardware to the new one, rebooted, and no luck.Another time, just used the recovery drive to create an image, but still no luck.Turned the PCI power manager to active, decrypted the C drive, and went through all the above tries, but with no luck.Successful Attempt Using Sabrenet 2TB,I kept the PCI settings as previous as well as the C drive being decrypted (see CMD commands online for decrypting C drive, you have to wait for an hour though, don't expect it to happen in couple of minutes).Someone already gave a good description on the process in the comment lines, and I used that to purchase a new USB housing that was able to fit a 2230 Nvem, put the new Sabrenet drive in it, and connected it to the SP8.Keep in mind, when you connect the Sabrenet 2TB to your USB C Thunderbolt, you won't see the drive popping up.I then downloaded Acronis software from Sabrenet's website, and the "Clone" icon was able to allocate the newly added 2TB Sabrenet and clone my OEM drive image with all its content (including the bootable Windows) to the Sabrenet in 10 minutes only. I physically swapped the drive and used thermal paste for the Sabrenet SSD and its connection to the housing. In turning on the PC the first time, after going into 5 minutes of windows update, it worked like a charm. I did not need to repartition the SSD as it already showed 1.81TB of available space.The actual capacity is 1.81TB for me, and the 188GB difference should come from the firmware and drives installed on Sabrenet.Be aware that Acronis will run in the background if you don't uninstall it. This brings your write speed down. Thus, after uninstalling the Acronit, my write speed went up to 3500Mbit/S and the read speed to around 5000Mbit/S. You can see the original SSD speed as well. The reason the write speed is down is because I did not use the thermal casing when testing it and I tested it after the swap (I put it back to the SP8 again, without the closure to capture the read/write speeds lol, should have done it before the swap but its okay).I encrypted my C drive after the upgrade. So far it has worked great for the past 24 hours. I hope it stays the same.