Mobile Devices (Core 1)

Power off the laptop and disconnect the battery (or use the battery cutoff), then ground yourself with an ESD strap to avoid electrostatic damage.

SODIMM (Small Outline DIMM) — a shorter module than desktop DIMMs, inserted at an angle into the slot and pressed down until the side clips latch.

Align the notch, insert at roughly a 45-degree angle, then press down flat until the retaining clips on both sides snap into place.

2.5-inch SATA drives (HDD or SSD) and M.2 cards (SATA or NVMe), with M.2 dominating in thin and light models.

Both share the M.2 form factor, but SATA M.2 uses the slower SATA bus (~600 MB/s) while NVMe uses PCIe lanes for far higher throughput. Slots are keyed (B, M, or B+M), and not every M.2 slot supports both protocols.

Clone the old drive to the SSD with disk-cloning software (often via a USB-to-SATA/M.2 adapter or enclosure), then swap the drives. Alternatively, do a clean OS install and restore data from backup.