Turn an Old M.2 SSD Into a Fast External Drive

Upgrade the SSD in a Steam Deck, a handheld or a laptop and you're left with a working drive in a drawer. If it's an NVMe drive, an enclosure turns it into a fast external drive for not much money. Check these things first.

Check what kind of drive it is

Look at the label. You want an NVMe drive, sometimes marked PCIe. An M.2 SATA drive looks almost the same but won't work in an NVMe enclosure. NVMe drives usually have a single notch in the connector (M key); SATA drives usually have two.

One catch for Steam Deck owners: the original 64GB Steam Deck shipped with eMMC storage, not an NVMe SSD. If yours came from that model, check the label before buying an enclosure.

Check the length

The size code tells you the length: 2230 is 30 mm long, 2242 is 42 mm, 2280 is 80 mm. The Steam Deck and the original ROG Ally use 2230 drives, Lenovo's Legion Go uses 2242, and most desktops and many laptops use 2280. Make sure the enclosure supports your length. Our SSD Enclosure 1 takes 2230, 2242, 2260 and 2280.

If you're on a recent Mac, there's no old drive to reuse: Apple silicon Macs don't use standard M.2 drives. Mac owners usually buy a new NVMe drive for an enclosure instead.

Wipe it

A drive from a Steam Deck still has SteamOS partitions on it, and a drive from a laptop has an old operating system. Erase the whole drive, not just one partition. On a Mac, use Disk Utility, choose the drive itself in the sidebar (turn on Show All Devices), and erase it as APFS for Mac only or exFAT if you'll also use it on Windows. On Windows, delete the old partitions in Disk Management and create a new volume.

Install it

Short drives need to be held at the right point in the enclosure, so use the stopper or standoff position that matches the length. Put the thermal pad on before closing it up. NVMe drives slow themselves down when they get hot, and the pad carries the heat away.

What to use it for

• A game library. Steam on Windows can install games to an external drive, which is handy when the internal drive fills up.
• A working drive for photo and video projects you move between computers.
• A backup drive. Even a 256GB or 512GB drive is enough for documents and a photo library.
• A fast shuttle drive for big files, much quicker than a USB stick.

What speed to expect

Older PCIe 3.0 drives are still fast. In a Thunderbolt enclosure, a decent one runs close to what the enclosure can carry, which is far quicker than a typical USB stick or a hard drive. Speeds depend on the drive, the enclosure and the port on your computer. Our M.2 SSD guide covers what to expect over Thunderbolt.

Because a Thunderbolt enclosure connects the drive over PCIe, the computer sees it as a normal NVMe drive, so health tools can usually read its SMART data. It's worth a look on a drive that has already had a working life.