Lenovo Legion 5 Gaming Laptop SSD Upgrade Service (UK Mail-In)
Free UK-Wide Doorstep Collection
Choose a courier collection day that suits you
No need to find a post office. We arrange insured doorstep collection from your home or workplace, between 9am and 6pm, available across the UK.
Check compatibility in under 60 seconds
Message us on WhatsApp — we’ll confirm straight away
This model-specific upgrade is part of our Laptop SSD Upgrade Service (UK Mail-In) — which includes installation, data transfer, and insured return shipping.
Mail-in SSD upgrade service
Reserve today for
£10
Balance only due after video proof
Turnaround
3–5
Business days door to door
Pricing
Pay the remaining balance later with PayPal or Klarna
Use Pay in 3 or Klarna when you’re ready to proceed • No interest • No fees
On this page
Table of Contents
- Which Lenovo Legion 5 Model Do You Have?
- Before and After Performance — HDD vs NVMe SSD
- Real-World Legion 5 Storage Complaints
- The Full Technical Picture
- Does the Legion 5 Have Two Storage Slots?
- Can a 2.5″ SATA Drive Be Added?
- Are Both M.2 Slots the Same Speed?
- Will a SATA M.2 Drive Work?
- Common Lenovo Legion 5 SSD Upgrade Questions
- What Our SSD Upgrade Service Includes
How to use this service
Check compatibility
Message us on WhatsApp and we’ll help confirm whether your laptop is suitable for an SSD upgrade. Prefer not to chat? You can also use our compatibility form instead.
Reserve your upgrade for £10
Choose your SSD storage size — 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB — and pay the £10 reservation fee. This amount is deducted from your final balance if the upgrade proceeds.
Choose how to send your laptop
Two options — whichever suits you best.
📦 Courier collection
Choose your preferred date. We confirm a free collection time between 9am and 6pm at your home or workplace.
✉️ Send it yourself
Receive a prepaid tracked label by email within one hour. Drop it at any DPD, UPS, or Royal Mail location.
Need packaging? We can send a suitable box to you for £10 — add this during booking. All shipping is fully insured and tracked via DPD, UPS, or Royal Mail.
We receive your laptop and get to work
Once your laptop arrives we begin work promptly. You will receive a status update the same day it arrives and are kept informed throughout via text or WhatsApp.
We send you video proof before you pay
Before your remaining balance is due — we send you a video of your upgraded laptop booting and running. You see your specific device, your boot time improvement, and your disk usage figures before paying anything further. No other UK laptop upgrade service does this.
Pay the remaining balance
Once you are happy with the video proof, pay the outstanding balance by card or PayPal. Prefer to spread the cost? Use Klarna Pay in 3 or PayPal Pay in 3 — interest-free, no fees.
Your laptop is returned to you
Your upgraded laptop is shipped back via fully insured tracked delivery. Our usual SSD upgrade turnaround is 3–5 business days from the point you send the laptop to the time you receive the upgraded laptop back.
No fix, no fee — always
If we cannot complete the upgrade for any reason, your laptop is returned at no charge and your £10 reservation fee is refunded in full. No questions asked.
SSD Upgrade Service — Lenovo Legion 5 Family
Lenovo Legion 5 SSD Upgrade
& Storage Expansion Service
The Legion 5 spans five generations and multiple Intel/AMD configurations — slot count, protocol support and bay conflicts differ meaningfully between them. The GPU and CPU are still capable hardware. The drive is the bottleneck.
Only £10 upfront. Remaining balance due only after video proof of your laptop working.
If your Legion 5 takes forever to boot, stutters when Chrome opens alongside a game, or shows 100% disk usage in Task Manager — the machine is being held back by storage, not the processor or GPU. Many Legion 5s shipped with a mechanical hard drive handling the heavy lifting, or a modest NVMe that was never a performance part to begin with. After a few years of games, updates and everyday use, the symptoms only get worse.
At ALVA PC, the upgrade means you hand us the same Legion 5 and get back the same Legion 5 — your Windows login, your files, your installed apps, your desktop exactly as you left it, running the way it should have from the start. If you’d like to understand more about why HDDs and slower NVMe drives cause these symptoms, our Windows SSD upgrade guide covers it in plain terms.
Need an SSD Upgrade for Your Lenovo Legion 5?
Reserve for just £10. We confirm compatibility, do the work, test the laptop, then send video proof of your actual Legion 5 working. Only after you’ve seen that do we request the remaining balance.
500GB SSD
£150
total price
£10 now · £140 after proof
1TB SSD
£190
total price
£10 now · £180 after proof
2TB SSD
£240
total price
£10 now · £230 after proof
Section 01
Which Lenovo Legion 5 Model Do You Have?
The name ‘Lenovo Legion 5’ covers several years of releases, and the exact storage layout varies significantly by generation and configuration. ALVA PC checks the specific details of your machine first — because while an upgrade is almost always possible, the right approach depends on which exact model you have.
Gen 5 Intel — hybrid bay, check battery first
Legion 5 15IMH05H (2020)
Two storage slots in one of two configurations: either one 2.5″ SATA bay plus one M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3×4 slot, or two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3×4 slots depending on battery size. The larger 80Wh battery physically occupies the 2.5″ bay space. No PCIe Gen 4 support on either slot; confirm battery and caddy presence before ordering anything.
Gen 6 AMD — clean dual M.2 Gen 3
Legion 5 15ACH6H (2021)
Dropped the 2.5″ bay entirely — two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3×4 slots with no battery conflict. Straightforward dual-NVMe upgrade path. Both slots are Gen 3 only.
Gen 6 Intel — asymmetric Gen 3 + Gen 4
Legion 5 15ITH6H (2021)
Two M.2 slots — one PCIe Gen 3×4, one PCIe Gen 4×4 — with no 2.5″ bay. The Gen 4 slot enables faster NVMe drives. Put your fastest drive in the Gen 4 slot; the secondary slot is hard-capped at Gen 3 (~3,500 MB/s) regardless of what drive you install.
| Model | Storage layout | Main upgrade angle |
|---|---|---|
| 15IMH05H | 1× 2.5″ SATA + 1× M.2 Gen 3×4 or 2× M.2 Gen 3×4 (battery-dependent) | Gen 3 NVMe only — confirm caddy and battery before ordering |
| 15ACH6H | 2× M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3×4, no 2.5″ bay | Simple dual-NVMe upgrade, no bay conflicts, Gen 3 ceiling |
| 15ITH6H | 1× M.2 Gen 3×4 + 1× M.2 Gen 4×4, no 2.5″ bay | One Gen 4 slot for high-speed NVMe — secondary slot is Gen 3 only |
Section 02
Before and After Performance — HDD vs NVMe SSD
| Everyday task | Before: Hard Drive | After: NVMe SSD | What you notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows boot | Often 45–90 seconds on HDD systems | Often 8–15 seconds with NVMe SSD | Desktop reached much faster |
| Opening apps | Common apps may hesitate | Apps open much more quickly | Less waiting after each click |
| Large file movement | Limited to roughly 80–150 MB/s | 2,000–7,000 MB/s on modern NVMe drives | Much faster for large game and project transfers |
| General feel | Capable specs, sluggish experience | Same laptop, far more responsive | Feels like itself again |
General HDD-vs-SSD figures — ask if you’d like model-specific numbers swapped in where available.
Section 03
Real-World Legion 5 Storage Complaints
Most Legion 5 owners aren’t complaining about the processor or GPU — the hardware has held up well. The complaints are almost always storage-related.
01
Base 512GB fills up fast
Base configurations shipped with only 512GB of primary SSD storage — adequate at launch, but modern AAA game libraries eat through it quickly. Many owners feel obligated to upgrade shortly after purchase.
02
Slow, noisy HDD on budget models
Older and lower-priced Legion 5 variants shipped with a mechanical 1TB HDD alongside a small M.2 SSD. Slow load times and audible vibration clashing with otherwise capable gaming hardware.
03
Sluggish OEM NVMe drive
The factory-installed NVMe is not a performance part and frequently underperforms relative to the slot’s theoretical bandwidth. Many owners notice a clear improvement only after replacing it with a better aftermarket drive.
04
Slot asymmetry not disclosed by Lenovo
The second M.2 slot is limited to PCIe Gen 3 while the first supports Gen 4 — a difference Lenovo doesn’t prominently communicate. Owners who install a fast Gen 4 drive in the wrong slot see none of the expected speed gain.
05
Single-channel RAM misdiagnosed as storage
Machines sold with a single 8GB RAM stick run in single-channel mode at roughly half their potential bandwidth, which throttles storage-intensive tasks and is frequently mistaken for a slow drive problem.
06
2.5″ bay blocked by 80Wh battery
On models equipped with the larger 80Wh battery, the battery occupies the 2.5″ bay entirely — silently preventing owners from adding a SATA SSD. This trade-off rarely appears on spec sheets and is only discovered when opening the chassis.
Check Compatibility Before You Book
Send us your exact Legion 5 model on WhatsApp and we’ll confirm the correct slot, protocol and drive type before you spend anything. Reserve for just £10.
500GB SSD
£150 total
£10 now · £140 after proof
1TB SSD
£190 total
£10 now · £180 after proof
2TB SSD
£240 total
£10 now · £230 after proof
3–5 business days turnaround. The aim is to return the same familiar Legion 5 with your setup intact wherever possible.
Section 04
The Full Technical Picture
The Gen 5 Intel (15IMH05H, 2020) is the most complicated: it can have either a 2.5″ SATA bay plus one M.2 slot, or two M.2 slots — and which configuration you have depends on which battery Lenovo installed. The larger 80Wh battery physically displaces the 2.5″ SATA bay. Either way, both M.2 slots on this platform are PCIe Gen 3×4 only — no Gen 4 support regardless of what drive you install.
The Gen 6 AMD (15ACH6H) simplified things: two M.2 2280 slots, both PCIe Gen 3×4, no 2.5″ bay conflict. The Gen 6 Intel (15ITH6H) pairs one PCIe Gen 3×4 slot with one PCIe Gen 4×4 slot — put your fastest drive in the Gen 4 slot. Both Gen 6 variants are M.2-only.
The most common mistake is buying a fast Gen 4 or Gen 5 NVMe drive for the secondary slot. The secondary slot on most Legion 5 configurations is hard-capped at PCIe Gen 3 (~3,500 MB/s), so a Gen 4 drive installed there will simply run at Gen 3 speeds. Spend the money on a quality Gen 4 drive for the primary slot; a solid mid-range Gen 3 drive is the sensible choice for the secondary. Also worth noting: the M.2 slots across the entire Legion 5 lineup are NVMe-only on most configurations — a SATA M.2 drive will seat physically but won’t be detected.
Section 05
Technical Details & Special Cases
Expand any section for model-specific detail.
Most Legion 5 generations (Gen 5 through Gen 7) ship with two M.2 slots, though Gen 5 Intel units may instead have one M.2 slot paired with a 2.5″ SATA bay depending on the specific battery configuration. The exact slot count can differ even between two machines sold as the same model. ALVA PC confirms the precise slot configuration of your specific unit before starting any work.
Only certain Gen 5 Intel models (15IMH05H) include a 2.5″ bay, and even then the bay may be physically blocked if the unit shipped with the larger 80Wh battery — in that case the battery occupies the space where the drive would sit. All Gen 6 AMD and Intel models are M.2-only with no 2.5″ bay at all.
No. Gen 5 and Gen 6 AMD models are PCIe Gen 3 on both slots. Gen 6 Intel and Gen 7 models typically offer PCIe Gen 4 on the primary slot but only PCIe Gen 3 (capped around 3,500 MB/s) on the secondary — meaning a fast Gen 4 or Gen 5 drive in the wrong slot will not reach its rated speed. ALVA PC verifies which slot is which before starting work so the faster drive always goes in the faster slot.
On most Legion 5 models from Gen 6 onward, the M.2 slots are NVMe-only — a SATA M.2 drive will physically seat in the connector but the system will not detect it. This is a common and costly mistake because the keying does not physically prevent insertion. ALVA PC confirms NVMe compatibility requirements for your specific model before starting work.
Section 06
Common Lenovo Legion 5 SSD Upgrade Questions
Section 07
What Our Lenovo Legion 5 SSD Upgrade Service Includes
We check your exact model, confirm the layout, select the correct drive and slot, carry out the work, test the laptop and send video proof before any remaining balance is due. For a wider explanation of how our service works across all supported Windows laptops, visit our main Windows SSD upgrade service page.
- Compatibility checking — slot, protocol, bay and battery layout
- Professional SSD installation
- Data cloning or migration where possible
- Testing before return
- Video proof of the completed work
- Tracked and insured return shipping
- 3–5 business days turnaround
- 12 month labour warranty
- No Fix, No Fee policy
Reserve Your Lenovo Legion 5 SSD Upgrade For £10
The £10 reservation starts the process. The remaining balance is only due after video proof of your actual laptop working.
500GB SSD
£150
total price
£10 now · £140 after proof
1TB SSD
£190
total price
£10 now · £180 after proof
2TB SSD
£240
total price
£10 now · £230 after proof
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