Third party SSD in Surfaces (like SP7+)?

[wpcoe]

The SP7+ and some other Surface device(s) have a replaceable SSD. With the (hopefully) imminent announcement of the Surface Pro 8, I was wondering what the prevailing thinking and/or actual experience is with "upgrading" a Surface device with a third party SSD. M.2 2230 SSDs are scarce in the marketplace, but they *can* be found.

When the SP7+ was new some bloggers said that only a bona-fide Microsoft replacement SSD was recommended, due to some specialized heat-dispersement feature of the MS SSDs. Is that really a thing? Would a plain, generic SSD potentially damage a Surface device?

Using the SP7+ prices as a guide, an i7/16GB/256GB is $1599, but with a 512GB is $1999, and with a 1TB is $2399. Those are some fairly steep price jumps.

 

[GreyFox7]

AFAIK the SSDs are standard SSDs. The heat spreader it's likely just a piece of aluminum attached to it which should be removable and attached to a replacement SSD. This should be clearly visible in those SSD replacement videos.
Here's an article/tutorial from a reputable site on doing it with the SPX.

Surface Pro X: How to upgrade the SSD in a few simple steps

Give yourself more storage on your Surface Pro with this handy guide.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[wpcoe]

AFAIK the SSDs are standard SSDs. The heat spreader it's likely just a piece of aluminum attached to it which should be removable and attached to a replacement SSD. This should be clearly visible in those SSD replacement videos.
Here's an article/tutorial from a reputable site on doing it with the SPX.

Surface Pro X: How to upgrade the SSD in a few simple steps

Give yourself more storage on your Surface Pro with this handy guide.

www.windowscentral.com

Thanks! That's encouraging. Now I understand what the bloggers meant about MS's SSD heat-reduction measures.

I like the information about the Toshiba/Kioxia BG4 SSDs. One blogger I had read back when the SP7+ was first launched bought a USB SSD thumb drive with a Kioxia in it and dismantled the thumb drive to extract it, and commented how it was faster than the original MS SSD. It must have been a BG4. I wonder if MS might upgrade the SSD in the SP8 to a BG4,.

The only m.2 2230 SSDs I find online are eBay sellers, all shipping from China -- which gives me pause -- but I did find some Kioxia drives among them. The m.2 2230s have come down in price since that Windows Central review. The 1TB drives are less than US$200 now.

The plan I'm developing is to buy an i7/16/256 SP8 and a 1TB SSD for around US$200, rather than pay the extra US$800 that MS wants to buy the SP8 with a 1TB SSD already in it (using SP7+ prices as a guide) . Bonuses are that I'll have a spare 256GB SSD (to put in a USB enclosure?) and (maybe) a faster SSD in the SP8.

 

[wpcoe]

For anybody following along, here's the video I found back in January of a YouTuber who harvested a 1TB Kioxia/Toshiba SSD from a thumb drive to replace the stock 256GB SSD that came in his Surface Pro 7+:

The 1TB version like he uses is currently available on Amazon for US$229.99.

As I mentioned above, eBay has new, bare Kioxia/Toshiba 1TB BG4 SSDs available for around US$200 (here's one example) BUT, they ship from China. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing, but it just gives me pause.

So, it's a choice of (a) dismantling a thumb drive or (b) buying a bare drive from China.

[edited to add] I also found a generic Samsung 512GB bare SSD on Amazon for US$149.00. (Smaller, but no need to rip apart a thumb drive nor worry about shipping from China.)