Acer Nitro SSD Upgrade: a Step-by-Step Guide on How to Upgrade

Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade is a good option to improve the overall system performance on your laptop. You can run MiniTool software to clone the old disk to the new SSD without reinstalling everything from scratch. Now, let’s delve into how to upgrade an SSD in Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53/54/55/57.

Overview of Acer Nitro 5

Acer Nitro 5 refers to a series of gaming laptops and its famous models include AN515-51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 41, 42, 43, 44, etc. Since Acer Nitro 5 laptops offer top-tier performance at an affordable price, they are reputable and popular with most game players. You may also be a user to run such a laptop for individual work projects or an amazing gaming experience.

Sometimes you may consider an Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade due to some reasons. Next, let’s see the factors and how to perform this task.

Why Upgrade Acer Nitro 5 SSD

Upgrading a hard drive to an SSD is conducive to improving the laptop’s responsive speed and overall performance. For those who need a faster and more reliable storage solution, it is worth the investment.

In some cases, you will consider Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53 SSD upgrade, or the upgrade in other Nitro 5 models.

The old hard drive has insufficient disk space to store data.
Your PC with an HDD runs slowly.
Disk write/read speed obviously slows down.

To get more storage space, gain fast transfer speed, and speed up your PC, take the Acer laptop SSD upgrade into account now.

Tips:

Compared to an HDD, an SSD offers fast write/read speed to optimize the PC performance. To know details, refer to this guide - SSD VS HDD: What’s Difference? Which One Should You Use in PC.

Acer Nitro 5 Supported SSDs

Before the upgrade, you should check the supported SSDs for your Acer Nitro 5 so that you can purchase a compatible model. Besides, it is necessary to know the information on the SSD slots on your laptop.

Most Acer Nitro 5 laptops come with two slots and let’s see a chart (from Acer’s official website) based on some common models:

Acer Laptop Model	M.2 Slot 1	M.2 Slot 2
AN515-51, 52 and 53 (Intel)	NVMe PCle or SATA	Not available
AN515-54	NVMe PCIe	NVMe PCle or SATA
AN515-41 and AN515-42 (AMD)	SATA only	Not available
AN515-43 (AMD)	NVMe PCIe	SATA only
AN515-44 (AMD)	NVMe PCIe	NVMe PCle or SATA

For AN515-55/57 and later, you can find its specifications online to know the slots. Generally speaking, multiple popular and reliable SSD brands are widely used for the Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade:

Seagate
SanDisk
Kingston
Crucial
Samsung
Western Digital (WD)

After knowing what type of M.2 SSD is supported by your Acer Nitro 5, you can go to search for “SSD for Acer Nitro 5 + model” in Google and purchase a proper solid-state drive, then follow the guide below to start the SSD upgrade.

How to Upgrade SSD in Acer Nitro 5

Things to Prepare

Before you proceed with the upgrade, you need to make all the preparations.

Prepare an SSD that has enough disk space and is compatible with your Acer laptop
Prepare a Phillips screwdriver to open and close the back cover
Get a piece of professional hard drive disk cloning software like MiniTool ShadowMaker
Back up your target drive like SSD to avoid unnecessary data loss
Delete unnecessary junk files and apps (optional but effective)

Clone HDD/SSD to a Larger SSD for Acer Nitro 5

If the disk upgrade process involves system & data migration, it is a good idea to use hard drive cloning software to help you do this operation. That is, if you want to replace the system disk and don’t want to reinstall the Windows operating system & apps, moving everything to a new hard drive via disk cloning is ideal. After the cloning process, you can directly boot the Acer laptop from the target disk like an SSD.

For the Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade, the best cloning tool – MiniTool ShadowMaker helps a lot. With it, you can make sure all the disk data (including the Windows operating system, settings, user profile, installed apps, games, personal files, registry items, and other data) is transferred to the new SSD.

This SSD cloning software offers a simple user interface and only several simple clicks are required to clone a hard drive. You can run MiniTool ShadowMaker to easily clone SSD to larger SSD and move Windows to another drive. It supports sector by sector cloning, cloning HDD to SSD, etc.

This software is compatible with various HDDs & SSDs and works properly on Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7. To upgrade SSD in Acer Nitro 5, download Trial Edition and install it on the PC for a try.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Note:

When involving system migration, you need to register this cloning software using a license since this is a paid feature. You can register it before the last step or after launching it.

Next, let’s see how to upgrade Acer Nitro 5 SSD:

Step 1: Connect your new SSD to the computer. Since Acer Nitro 5 offers two slots, you can install the SSD to the second M.2 slot by following the steps in the next part. If the laptop only has a single slot, connect this SSD to the PC using an M.2 to USB adapter. What’s more, remember to initialize this new disk in Disk Management.

Tips:

If your Acer laptop only has a slot, how can you perform the SSD upgrade? This post - How to Clone M.2 SSD with Only One Slot could be helpful.

Step 2: Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker and click Keep Trial to go on.

Step 3: Move to the Tools tab and then click Clone Disk.

Step 4: Choose the clone source drive (original system disk) and target drive (SSD), register this software, and then start the disk cloning process.

Tips:

MiniTool ShadowMaker uses a new disk ID for the target drive during cloning to make sure a successful OS boot from it. Besides, Used sector clone is performed by default. If you want to clone a disk sector by sector, go to Options > Disk clone mode and check Sector by sector clone before the final step.

Further reading:

In addition to MiniTool ShadowMaker, another SSD cloning software – MiniTool Partition Wizard can be used for Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade. As a professional partition manager, this tool enables you to manage disks and partitions with ease – split/shrink/extend/wipe/format/resize/delete a partition, check bad blocks, convert file system, convert disk to MBR/GPT, analyze disk space, perform a disk benchmark, copy a disk/partition, migrate OS to SSD/HDD, etc.

To run the Acer laptop SSD upgrade, get this tool. If you need to clone the system disk to an SSD, also register it.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Then, tap on Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard or Copy Disk Wizard and follow the on-screen instructions to clone a hard drive to an SSD.

After completing the cloning process, take measures to set the cloned SSD to be bootable drive. Make sure this SSD is installed properly. If you don’t know how to install it on a laptop, continue reading to find details.

How to Install an SSD to the M.2 Slot

Usually, Acer Nitro 5 has two M.2 slots. You can choose to install the new SSD to the second M.2 slot, keep your original disk, and then use it as the boot drive after cloning for optimal system performance. Or, you can remove the old hard drive and replace it with the new SSD.

So, how to install the new SSD on your PC? See these steps:

Tips:

To find details, refer to our related post: How to Install an M.2 SSD on Windows PC [Complete Guide].

Step 1: Shut down your Acer Nitro 5 laptop and remove its power cord.

Step 2: Place the laptop upside down so that the bottom faces up. Then, open its back cover using a screwdriver to remove screws.

Step 3: Identify and locate the slots to install SSDs in on the motherboard. Sometimes you need to detach the components that block the M.2 slots, for example, the battery.

To install the new SSD to the second M.2 slot, gently insert the SSD and screw it in the slot.
To replace the old disk with a new SSD, use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the screw that secures the old disk and then remove the drive from the PC at an angle. Then, insert the new SSD for the Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade.

Step 4: Reconnect all the components to the original locations, plug the power cable, and boot the laptop.

Tips:

To boot the system from the cloned SSD on the PC where two hard drives are installed, another step is required – press F2 after starting the laptop to enter the BIOS menu, go to Boot, and configure the device to boot from the SSD.

What If Cloned SSD Won’t Boot

In some cases, the cloned SSD fails to boot your Windows operating system after the Acer Nitro 5 storage upgrade. What happens? Perhaps your original hard drive contains bad sectors, there is a GPT/MBR conflict, the SSD isn’t installed properly, etc. As a result, the boot issue appears.

Thus, how can you solve the annoying issue? Multiple solutions are offered in our previous post – What if Cloned Drive/SSD Won’t Boot Windows 11/10/8/7? Fix It. Just follow the given workarounds when confronted with such a situation.

Wrap Things up

That’s a step-by-step full guide on the Acer Nitro 5 SSD upgrade. When your old hard drive runs slowly or has insufficient disk space, upgrade the disk to an SSD for optimal performance. Before the upgrade, prepare some things, clone the old disk to the new SSD and replace the original disk or install the new SSD to the second slot, then boot the device from the cloned disk.

This guide applies to Acer Nitro 5 AN515-53 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 SSD upgrade, Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57 SSD upgrade, etc. Hope this post helps easily solve your issue.

Acer Nitro 5 SSD Upgrade FAQ

Can Acer Nitro 5 SSD be upgraded?

Of course, you can. The Acer Nitro 5 laptop offers two slots to upgrade your storage and you can add an SSD to the second slot or replace the existing SSD.

How many SSD slots does Acer Nitro 5 have?

Most models of Acer Nitro 5 have two SSD slots. Based on different models, the SSD interfaces are various and most are for NVMe SSDs. Moreover, some support SATA SSDs.

Can I put 2TB SSD in Acer Nitro 5?

Yes, you can install a 2TB SSD to your Acer Nitro 5 as long as the SSD is compatible with your model.

Does Acer Nitro 5 support NVMe SSD?

Typically, the Acer Nitro 5 laptop supports one NVMe SSD slot (like in the M.2 form factor).

About The Author

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Position: Columnist

Vera is an editor of the MiniTool Team since 2016 who has more than 7 years’ writing experiences in the field of technical articles. Her articles mainly focus on disk & partition management, PC data recovery, video conversion, as well as PC backup & restore, helping users to solve some errors and issues when using their computers. In her spare times, she likes shopping, playing games and reading some articles.