Having a laptop with a hard disk as a primary disk in 2023 is really obsolete. That is why people tend to install SSDs on their laptops.
But before installing the SSD, you know there is one traditional SATA SSD that can be replaced with your hard disk with no slot problem. However, if you want to install the better version, how do you know if your laptop has an M.2 Slot?
So today in this article, I will show you how to check M.2 slot in dell laptops very quickly.
3 Ways to Check M.2 Slot in Dell Laptop
There are several ways to check if your dell laptop has an M.2 SSD slot or not, so here are some of the authentic and easiest methods that will surely help you to find out if you can install an M.2 SSD in your laptop.
1. Check the User Manual Guide
When you buy a brand-new laptop you see a lot of paperwork that comes with it. Have you ever wondered what this is for?
The user manual guide contains information about your laptop, usually represent in a graphical way. Find out the motherboard diagram and look for M.2 slot on the motherboard.
For better understanding here is an image of how the M.2 Slot looks on the laptop motherboard so you can identify it from the user manual.
If you find out any such ports on your laptop that are not occupied, it means your laptop has an M.2 slot in which you can easily install an M.2 slot to boost your laptop speed.
2. Check from Dell Support website
Step 1. Visit Dell Support
Step 2. Enter your laptop model and hit the search button.
Step 3. Find out the User Manual and click on it.
Step 4. Once you are at the owner manual page of your laptop, click on “Removing and Installing Components” on the left sidebar as you can see in this image. 
Step 5. Check for the installation of the SSD section under it. It will guide you on how to install SSD on your laptop, if there is an M.2 SSD in the picture it means there is an M.2 Slot on your laptop.
However, if there is no M.2 Slot, there will be simply the replacement of the hard disk with a SATA SSD.
3. Check it Manually
The last and manual way to check if your dell laptop has an M.2 Slot is to open it from the back and see the motherboard for an empty M.2 slot.
The reason why I am emphasizing the empty slot is that sometimes there is a slot but it is not empty. It is occupied by a WLAN card so you can’t install your M.2 SSD over there.
But if there is a vacant slot that is not occupied, it is a green signal for you as your laptop has an M.2 slot.
Which one is good SATA, M2, or NVMe?
When it comes to the comparison of all these form factors of SSD, you need to consider a few things like how much you are willing to spend on storage media and how much speed you really want.
Compared to a standard Hard disk a typical SSD can provide you with up to 5 times more speed. Let’s look at some numbers.
| Type | Speed |
| HDD | 100-150 MB/s |
| SSD ( SATA ) | 450-550 MB/s |
| M.2 SSD ( SATA ) | 500-600 MB/s |
| NVMe ( PCI-E ) | 2500-3500 MB/s |
Does every M.2 SSD use PCI-E?
M.2 SSD can either be SATA or NVMe. It depends on how they are designed but they cannot use both forms at the same time. If you have an M.2 SSD that uses PCI-E you can get up to 3.5 Gbps ( 3500 MB/s ).
However, there is one thing you need to pay attention to it.
Not all M.2 Slot can handle PCI-E, so before installing an M.2 SSD that uses PCI-E you need to make sure your laptop has an NVMe slot because most NVMe uses PCI-E so a slot that uses PCI-E is also known as an NVMe slot.
Conclusion
So these were the best and easiest ways to figure out if your dell laptop has an M.2 slot in dell laptop. SSD really helps you to boost your laptop speed and the M.2 which is a faster version of SATA is faster than it.
I also have M.2 SSD on my PC. Having a laptop with an SSD no matter whether SATA or M.2 is a must thing, let me know in the comments which SSD your laptop has.