Slow SSD on Surface Book: Fix the Issue or Replace the SSD

How to fix a slow SSD in Surface Book? This post walks you through 5 troubleshooting methods. Try them one by one until the slow SSD issue on Surface Book 2 is solved. Alternatively, replace the extremely slow SSD in Surface Book with a fast one.                                                              

Method 1: Disconnect the Connected Peripherals

Though connected peripherals are not the culprit of the slow SSD on Surface Book issue, disconnecting peripherals is an effective way to get rid of the issue. Many users claim that this operation helps them solve the problem.

Disconnecting the connected peripherals is a simple way to troubleshoot the slow SSD issue on Surface Book 2. You just need to disconnect all the peripherals before you boot the Surface Book. After the device boots up, check if the issue is fixed.

Method 2: Disable Onboard VGA

Additionally, disabling Onboard VGA is also useful for solving the slow SSD issue on Surface Book 2. You can also have a try!

Step 1: Restart your computer and keep pressing the BIOS key while the PC loads up.

Step 2: After entering the BIOS setup screen, navigate to the Advanced BIOS Settings.

Step 3: Then disable Onboard VGA by using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Step 4: Press the F10 > Enter key to save the changes and exit BIOS.

Step 5: After the Surface Book restarts, check if the issue is solved.

Also read: Black Myth: Wukong PC Optimization Guide for Gamers

Method 3: Free up Space

In normal cases, SSDs have fast read/write speeds. However, if they are almost full, they will become slow. When you receive the slow SSD on Surface Book issue, check if your SSD is running out of space by File Explorer or Windows Settings.

The space indicator bar of File Explorer displays the available space in the drive. If you have set up a low disk space warning, you will receive a warning message once the SSD runs in low disk space. Alternatively, you can open Settings and navigate to System > Storage to view the space usage of the drive.

If the left free space is below 20%, you need to free up space by deleting useless but space-consuming files to improve the performance of the SSD. There are two ways to do that. According to your preference, select one to release space.

Option 1: Use Disk Cleanup

Disk Cleanup is a built-in utility on the Windows computer. It can help you delete junk files, temporary files, and other unnecessary files to free up space.

Step 1: Hold the Windows and R keys to open the Run dialog window.

Step 2: In the Run window, type cleanmgr and click the OK button.

Step 3: In the Disk Cleanup window, choose the partition on the SSD drive from the drop-down menu and then click OK to continue.

Step 4: Under the Files to delete section, check the boxes in front of files to remove and click OK to save changes.

Step 5: In the prompted window, click Delete Files to confirm the operation.

Further reading:

If you want to further free up space, follow these instructions.

1. In the Disk Cleanup window, click the Clean up system files button.
2. In the pop-up window, choose the drive from the drop-down menu and click OK.
3. Choose the file types you want to delete and click OK.
4. Confirm the operation again by clicking Delete Files.

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Option 2: Use MiniTool Partition Wizard

Alternatively, you can use a professional space analyzer to find what’s taking up your hard drive space and free up space by deleting useless files. MiniTool Partition Wizard is such a utility, enabling you to check disk space usage easily and remove unnecessary files.

Besides, this multifunctional partition manager also allows you to perform other tasks related to hard disks/partitions. For instance, you can partition hard drive, format SSD, convert MBR to GPT, clone hard drive, perform an SSD health check, recover data from hard drive, etc. In a word, it can meet your different demands.

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard on your Surface Book. Then launch it to enter its main interface. After that, follow these steps to complete the operation.

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Step 1: In the main interface of MiniTool Partition Wizard, click on Space Analyzer on the top toolbar.

Step 2: Click on the down arrow icon to open the drop-down menu and then click on the drive that stands for the SSD. Then click the Scan button to start the analyzing process.

Step 3: The result will be displayed fully after the scanning process ends. You can view the result in three modes (Tree View, File View, and Folder View). After finding the large and useless files, right-click on them and click Delete (to Recycle Bin) or Delete (permanently).

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Method 4: Download and Install the Samsung NVM Express Controller

According to user reports, installing the Samsung NVM Express Controller also works. Since the Samsung NVM Express Controller allegedly doubles the write speed, getting it installed on your device helps you troubleshoot the slow SSD on Surface Book.

Download the Samsung NVM Express Controller from Microsoft Update Catalog or other reliable websites. Then install it by following the on-screen instructions. Here’s a full guide. You can refer to it to complete the operation.

Step 1: Navigate to the official website of Microsoft Update Catalog on your Surface Book.

Step 2: Type Samsung NVMe Controller in the search box and then click Search or press the Enter key on the keyboard.

Step 3: After a while, all the related search results will be shown to you.

Step 4: Click on the Download button behind the desired version.

Step 5: In the prompted window, click on the link to start the download process.

Step 6: After the download ends, install the Samsung NVM Express Controller by following the prompted instructions.

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Method 5: Apply a High Power Plan

If you apply a balanced power plan, it may cause other hardware using too much power. Given that fact, the SSD won’t receive sufficient power to run properly, causing slow SSD on Surface Book. If so, try using a high-power plan to troubleshoot the issue.

Here’s the tutorial for you.

Step 1: Open the Run window and type control. Then click OK or hit the Enter key to open the Control Panel.

Step 2: In the Control Panel, set the View by as Category and then click Hardware and Sound.

Step 3: In the next window, tap on Power Options to move on.

Step 4: Switch the power plan from Balanced (recommended) to High performance.

Step 5: Restart your device and check if the slow SSD issue on Surface Book 2 is solved.

Also read: 6 Solutions to Blue Screen After Installing New CPU or GPU

Upgrade or Replace the SSD

What to do if you have an extremely slow SSD in Surface Book? A thorough troubleshooting method is to upgrade or replace the SSD. You can replace the present SSD with a fast SSD. Since the SSD replacement operation is skill-required, you’d better let qualified IT technicians do that, especially if you are not familiar with it.

If you have some experience of doing that, you can complete the operation by yourself. Here are the instructions for removing and replacing the SSD from Surface devices. The following steps can be applied to these devices.

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• Surface Laptop Studio (all generations)
• Surface Pro 10
• Surface Pro 9
• Surface Pro 9 with 5G
• Surface Pro 8
• Surface Pro 7+
• Surface Pro X
• Surface Laptop Go (all generations)
• Surface Laptop 6
• Surface Laptop 5
• Surface Laptop 4
• Surface Laptop 3
• Surface Studio 2+

Step 1: Ensure that your Windows system version is the latest one. If not, open Settings and click Update & Security > Check for updates. Then install the available updates by clicking the Download and Install button next to the listed updates.

Step 2: If the Surface device can be unencrypted before removing and replacing the SSD, you can turn off BitLocker by opening Settings > typing Bitlocker in the search box > hitting Enter > clicking Manage BitLocker > selecting Turn off BitLocker.

Step 3: If the Surface device is encrypted before SSD removal and replacement, generate a BitLocker recovery key and save it to a USB drive with these instructions.

• With the above instructions, open Manage BitLocker in Settings.
• Click Generate BitLocker Recovery Key.
• Plug a USB into the device and save the recovery key to the USB.
• Remove the USB drive and power down the device.

Step 4: Follow this Surface Service Guide to remove the SSD.

Step 5: Put the new SSD into the device and power on it.

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How to fix the slow SSD on Surface Book? This post provides you with several solutions. You can try them to solve the issue.Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

This post has shown 5 ways to fix the slow SSD in Surface Book. It also offers you instructions for replacing the extremely slow SSD in Surface Book. You can refer to this guide if you get a slow SSD on Surface Book.

For any issues with MiniTool Partition Wizard, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Directly send us an email via [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as possible.