WD_BLUE SN570 250GB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 NVMe up to 3300 MB/s read speed

I purchased one of these as I was looking to add more storage to a gaming laptop and this very one (WD Blue SN550 1TB) caught my eye, solely because of it's outstanding value for money. Nobody can deny that £69.99 for a 1TB PCIe solid-state storage drive, with blazing fast NVMe speeds is an exceptionally great price! Granted, it's definitely not the fastest SSD on the market, but for my purpose, it's more than sufficient. And I guess the same will go for many others out there looking to buy a storage drive for that same reason too. So I did my research and went for this one! Just for some background, the machine I fitted this too is an MSI GE66-10UG Raider, which by default has 1TB of storage. The pre-installed drive is also a WD, but it's an SN730 (which is basically the same drive as a Black SN750, but an OEM model number), but whilst 1TB might seem like quite a lot, by modern day standards it isn't. Some Steam games can be as much as 100GB each and as a YouTuber, video files can be HUGE! So I basically just wanted a drive for mass storage purposes. All I use this for mostly is to store my Videos folder, other games (such as slightly older non-Steam games, emulators and roms) and somewhere for recording apps, such as Elgato and OBS to record to. This drive ticked all of those boxes for me. In fact, for that use, it's probably overkill. The pre-installed drive (SN730) I will continue to use my Windows installation, programs, Steam games and personal files, such as documents. Of course, if you want to use this drive for an OS Installation, it's still probably more than sufficient, given the read and write speeds in the attached image. And of course, it'll blow any SATA based SSD out of the water, so remember that! Installation was very easy! The hardest part is accessing the M.2 slot, and that is it. My laptop was quite a pain to open up and get into, but that shouldn't be the case for most other laptops and especially desktop machines. One thing I would love to note is, I installed this "as is", and didn't bother to do anything with thermal pads or a heatsink and it runs at similar temperatures, if not quite a bit cooler in some circumstances than the SN730. I'm more than sure this will last. After all, this drive is designed to be budget friendly, easy to install and cool running and it does indeed excel at all of those. So overall, I can strongly recommend this drive. Especially being more than sufficient for mass storage, if there is nowhere to put a 2.5" drive, like pretty much all of the new MSI laptops don't. And also as a main drive too. Unless perhaps you're building a super high-end rig. But still, if you are looking to save some cost somewhere, this is a very good answer and will suffice greatly. TL;DR: If you're looking for a fast storage drive for exceptional value... JUST BUY THIS ONE!!!

Bought the 2TB Nvme version to install into my gaming laptop as I had a spare Nvme slot. Very easy to install these little drives & you don't really require any IT skills to do so... Just make sure to earth yourself so as to discharge any static electricity that may have built up in you before handling components such as these & you'll be fine ;) This WD Blue Nvme does everything it's claimed & has been performing without issues for about a month after installing it. Average read/ write speeds with tests resulted in it matching it's advertised speeds. So once everything is factored in I think I made a wise choice, having chosen it to be a 2nd HD in a gaming laptop for storage of games from Steam, Origin & UPlay etc... It's cheaper than the Corsair or Crucial alternatives & I would think as reliable if not more so than those 2 aforementioned competitors & their more expensive options available from them. I've bought many a Western Digital hard drive over my many yrs of PC use be it gaming or business & TBH I can't recall ever having 1 WD die on me unlike many other brands namely Seagates. So to sum up ; Pros : Decent speeds reads & writes, built well (as all WD drives usually are) & by far the best Pro is it's cheap price ! Cons : Won't break any read or write speed tests if I'm being ultra ultra picky but I knew this going into the purchase so perhaps I'm being too harsh saying this is a Con but thought I'd try at least put in 1 thing in the Con section ;) Best 2TB decent quality bang per buck NVme currently available IMHO ;)

I really like WD's products and have found them to be very reliable so I bought one of their SN550 Blue M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs which I knew would give a hugely significant performance boost (see images for comparison: before and after) as before I had a 1TB WD HDD which came with my Dell Inspiron 5570. The storage capacity (250GB) of this new SSD is perfect for my needs as I don't store any of my personal data on it (it is purely for the operating system and programs alone). I use the original 1TB WD HDD that came with my laptop for all of my personal data as it has a 2.5" HDD bay and also an M.2 slot so I can have dual drives. You can opt for a bigger version of this model such as 500GB or 1TB if you require more space. This was incredibly easy to install, all I had to do was remove the back cover of my laptop, then locate the M.2 drive bay slot, insert the drive into the slot the correct way around and then screw the screw into the other end to secure it (my laptop came with this screw already inside, depending on your make and model, you may need to purchase a screw as well). You can then either clone your disk (copy everything that was on the pervious disk you used) using software such as Macrium Reflect (free for home use) or Acronis True Image (30-day free trial) or if you're like me and want a complete fresh start you can install Windows 10 with a bootable USB drive which you can create using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool on their website. Once you've installed Windows 10, it should automatically activate as your product key stays with the computer even if just some of the components are replaced such as the RAM and SSD. Overall, I would highly recommend this SN550 Blue M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD from WD as it offers great performance for a reasonable price. Upgrading your memory and SSD are the two most significant upgrades you can make to your laptop/PC to improve performance and efficiency.

I recently bought this SSD hard drive, and I have been incredibly impressed with its performance. This hard drive has exceeded my expectations in terms of speed, reliability, and overall quality. First and foremost, the SSD hard drive has dramatically improved the speed of my computer. Starting up the PC and opening applications takes a fraction of the time it used to with my old hard drive. The read and write speeds are incredibly fast, and I have noticed a significant improvement in the speed of my day-to-day work. Additionally, the SSD hard drive is incredibly reliable. It's built to last, and I haven't had any issues with data loss or corruption. This reliability is crucial for me as I store important files on my hard drive, and I can't afford to lose them due to a hard drive malfunction. The overall quality of the SSD hard drive is also impressive. It's solidly built, and the design is sleek and modern. It looks fantastic in my setup, and the compact size means that it doesn't take up much space on my desk. Finally, I want to mention how easy it was to install. It was a straightforward process, and I had it up and running in no time. The user-friendly installation software made the process even simpler. Overall, I would highly recommend this SSD hard drive to anyone looking to improve the performance and reliability of their computer. Its impressive speed, reliability, and overall quality make it an excellent choice for anyone looking for a high-performance hard drive that will stand the test of time.

I bought this SSD to upgrade my PC with more storage and speed. I was impressed by the performance and reliability of this drive, which can read up to 3500 MB/s and write up to 3000 MB/s. The drive is compatible with PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe slot, and it has a slim and single-sided M.2 2280 form factor. The installation was easy and straightforward, and the drive was recognized by Windows 10 without any issues. The drive also comes with a free one-year subscription of Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan, which is a nice bonus for creative users. Pros: +Fast and reliable performance +Slim and single-sided design +Compatible with PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe slot +Comes with a free one-year subscription of Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan +Five-year limited warranty Cons: -No heat sink or thermal pad included -May not work with older motherboards or BIOS -No software or instructions included in the package Reasons to buy: *If you want to upgrade your PC with a fast and reliable NVMe SSD *If you want to boost your creative workflow and productivity *If you want to enjoy a free one-year subscription of Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan Reasons to avoid: *If you don’t have a PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe slot on your motherboard *If you have an older motherboard or BIOS that may not support this drive *If you need a heat sink or thermal pad for better cooling

After running out of system drive space on my server running multiple virtual machines, I decided it was time just to splash out on a bigger SSD. Unfortunately I've used all 4 SATA connectors... Fortunately, I spotted this PC I bought had 2x NVME slots - happy days.... So after a bit of investigation I decided to get this 1TB WD blue drive. Installation in theory is pretty simple - you just plug the drive into the slot and... it just sticks up... turns out you need to rest the drive on a special M2 sized nut which needs to be screw into the motherbord. a tiny bolt then needs to pinch the drive into position... However searching around, I couldn't find any such fittings in the SSD packaging box. With full panic, I eventually found that the PC I'd bought pre-built had a couple of spare ones in a bag. So be aware - NO M2 FITTINGS INCLUDED - you need to ensure you have your own, or buy some. Once in place, I fired up the PC, partititioned the new disk and it's ready to go. I copied my Virtual machines over off the system drive and everything works just perfectly. The drive is fast compared to what I'm used to (you can see the 200+ MB write speed, but that'll be bottlenecked by the Maxtor SATA SSD it's copying from). At £84, these NVME SSDs are just getting cheaper and cheaper, and represent great value for what you get in terms of performance. So initial impressions, I'm very impressed full recommendation from me! I will update this review over time should there be any significant developments. Oh one other thing, I've stuck a heatsink onto it (I'll review that separately).

It wasn't long ago when SSDs were so highly priced you'd often see people only recommending a 256GB OS drive and HDDs for mass media. Those were just SATA SSDs too, NVMe ones were considerably more expensive without offering much of a practical benefit to getting one. In recent times, however, this is not much true anymore. Don't get me wrong, the £/GB of this drive is certainly much higher than what you can find on a mechanical drive, but it's also practically the same as an equivalent SATA drive and is now sufficiently low that it becomes practical and affordable to go exclusively SSD in a system. This 1TB NVMe drive is blazingly fast due to its SSD nature, has the excellent m.2 form factor that allows it to sit on your motherboard without any more cables to manage or bays to screw into, and comes in at a cool £87. That's only a 10% markup over a SATA 2.5" SSD I got from a few years ago... which had QUARTER the capacity this one does. It then becomes hard to make an argument against getting this drive, even the NVMe version as for £5 over the SATA one... well, you just might as well, even if its only advantage is showing off larger numbers in benchmarks. It's important to note though that this is PCIe Gen 3, so even in a Gen 4 slot you will still be getting Gen 3 speeds. This isn't much of a problem currently, but may end up being one for gaming in some years from now if Direct Storage technology makes its way to PC. Those Gen 4 drives cost a pretty penny extra, however, so given that the future is not indeed today, this is the drive I would recommend to anyone looking for a high capacity SSD in 2021.

I've had a Mobo with an M3 slot in for some time but had held off getting and NVME drive. Mainly because I was using an SSD/HDD combo in my PC and was reasonably happy with that (fast system loading, games slower). Recently though I got one of these pesky next gen consoles and have got very used to rapid game loading. So I decided it's time to upgrade. This drive gives a nice balance of price / capacity / performance. Yes it's not the fastest but it's still a big step forwards from HDD speeds. Mine is to be used as a game drive and is delivering exactly what I hoped. Games like Flight Sim are now loading so much faster and it hugely improves the experience. Installation was a breeze. Insert it to the M3 slot at a slight angle and then move it down to flat then screw it the board (with the nut found there on the board usually). I was concerned that my CPU Heat Sink / fan was sitting over it but it proved not to be a problem sliding it in under at all. Overall a fantastic price for a cracking upgrade. If you've an M3 slot spare then, at these prices, it's easy to recommend.