Western Digital 500GB WD Blue SN550 NVMe Internal SSD - Gen3 x4 PCIe 8Gb/s, M.2 2280, 3D NAND, Up to 2,400 MB/s - WDS500G2B0C

Highly recommended

Im using this as an external drive, so its kind of a combined review since a separate enclosure is needed. In this case, Im using an ICY BOX M.2 NVMe enclosure. Results may vary with different enclosures or busses. Tested on a MACBOOK PRO 2017. Its definitely a FAST combination, but under other circumstances, I might be tempted to knock it a star for falling short of the reported speed, but since I dont know where the bottleneck is (enclosure, drive, Mac) I want to be fair. The ICY BOX enclosure only claims to support up to 1000MB/S so it could likely be the bottleneck, but the values are still under that figure. I tested with BlackMagic Disk Speed test on a 2017 MacBook Pro and compared it to the fastest drives in my arsenal. Heres what I saw: MAC Internal 800 MB/S WRITE - 2200 MB/S READ - (BLAZING READ!) ICY BOX + WD M.2 NVMe (THIS ONE - HUGE IMPROVEMENT OVER SATA SSD) 855 MB/S WRITE - 885 MB/S READ SABRENT ROCKET - NVMe SSD (ASTONISHINGLY FAST, BUT COSTS MORE AND NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE) 1325 MB/S WRITE - 1250 MB/S READ WD BLUE SATA SSD (YOUR STANDARD SOLID STATE FAST DRIVE) 180 MB/S WRITE - 380 MB/S WRITE he WD SN550 drive claims to be able to deliver up to 2400 MB/S speed. Perhaps its faster when used internally. I cant really draw any conclusions from this. But even at the as-tested speed, its VERY FAST and a PHENOMENAL VALUE. The Sabrent Rocket also uses an NVMe drive internally (dont know if its an M.2) and it delivers 50% better performance... but it also cost 3X more than this combination, and is currently not available. Surprisingly, this combo was slightly FASTER at writing than the internal Mac drive(!), but it was only a third as fast at reading. But, regardless of this not returning the mythical claimed speeds, it still out-performed a standard SSD drive by 3-5X!!! (and remember, an SSD drive is many X faster than an old-school HDD platter drive). The combo copied 25GB worth of photos (all individual files, which brings some drives to their knees to beg for mercy) in 1 MINUTE FLAT. FANTASTIC! It copied over a folder with 1.5GB of photos in about 2 seconds. SERIOUSLY FANTASTIC. You WILL need to format this drive. On a Mac, use the DIsk Utility app that comes with your OS. It only takes a few seconds and then the Mac mounts it and it becomes available for use. So, I dont know what it takes to get those mythical 2400MB/S speeds, but as an external drive, this is a solid performer and a GREAT value. If it does even better on an internal bus, then its just all the better value! This is a drive that will be especially appreciated by photographers and video editors, or any other activities that require huge amounts of data. I use it for my Lightroom photo library of tens-of-thousands of photos. Hope this helps!

Me gustó mucho

Installed in my laptop, then placed the old drive in a drive case, then used Western Digital Adonis from their website to transfer a drive image across to the new drive. Everything went without a hitch. Drive is easy to install and fast. No drive issues so far (about one month since installation).

I built a new computer using a Ryzen processer and the x570 chipset. This drive attaches to the motherboard and takes very little space. The speeds on these are amazing - I thought the old SATA SSD drives were nice. Now, they seem slow.

Installed the 500 gb model in an external enclosure to use like a fast high capacity USB flash drive, connected by cable whenever I want to use it. No complaints regarding performance. I used the TDBT enclosure found on Amazon for $24. It comes with 2 cables----one to connect to a standard USB type A port. The other connects to a USB type C port. WD Dashboard tool sees the drive OK, but does not display all features--I cant read temps or SMART data from the Dashboard. Not a big deal as I can read them with other software I have. Backup times for 360 GB of random data (95,000 files) from an internal Intel 660p NVMe SSD to this drive in the enclosure via standard drag and drop: via A port; about 22 minutes, about 990 GB per hour. via C port; about 21 minutes; about 1045 GB per hour--about 5% faster than the A port. Crystal Disk Mark reports that the overall speeds are 40 to 50% faster on the C port. Maybe true in a benchmark, but I realized only the 5% difference noted in my real-world use case. This 500 GB model has a TBW of 300. Ive written over 1 TB already in my tests. Temps never rose above 58. Idling temps in an 81 degree Fahrenheit room (27 C) are in the 43 to 48 range. The TDBT enclosure comes with optional thermal tape to apply directly to the drive to reduce temps. I did NOT use the tape, but I understand it should reduce temps by at least 5 degrees. Id probably use the tape if I had this drive connected constantly.....but I dont do that. The enclosure is designed well with a lot of heatsink area, so temps arent likely to be an issue for you. I had major problems getting it to work well on the C port, which I solved by changing to the most recent chipset driver INF file available at my motherboard manufacturers web site. But thats a Windows/motherboard issue, not the fault of WD. Until I made that change, the drive would disappear randomly or copy very slowly to the C port. The A port connection always worked well.

A drive like this is really all you need for either gaming, productivity or just general use. It fast and responsive. There is not a need to buy faster drives unless you do video or graphics editing. Yes while other drives are technically faster for 99% of the world including gamers you will not see any difference between this and the black or an evo. Have both the 1tb and 2tb model

If you want great performance for 99% of your needs then this is the one for you. the only problem I encountered is I had to update my mobo (x570 asus prime-p) to the latest firmware or else it wont even go into bios. so make sure to update your mobo WITHOUT the ssd installed. 2020 will be great year for hardware getting cheap and performance getting crazy, enjoy while it lasts!

I just upgraded to this SSD and change was amazing, is really fast and cheap

very pleased with my purchase