Western Digital 500GB WD Blue 3D NAND Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280, Up to 560 MB/s - WDS500G2B0B
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I installed WD Blue SSDs in both my 2014 Mac Mini and 2015 21" iMac and have had no issues. The connectors are standard SATA, as were the connectors on both of my Macs. As a result, no adapters are required. br>br>After formatting the drive as a GIUD partition with Disk Utility, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the data from the old hard drive to the SSD in an external enclosure. CCC also made the SSD a bootable volume (it copied EVERYTHING on the drive). Data files, as well as the operating system and applications). I took the precaution of setting System Preferences/Startup Drive to the SSD (while it was still in the external enclosure) to confirm that it would boot from that drive. I knew it was booting from the SSD because it normally took my computer just over 3 minutes to boot from the old drive, but it only took 27 seconds when I booted it from the external SSD. The external enclosure, by the way, was a USB 3.0. There is no barrier. If you have a USB 2.0 port on your computer, you can use it to charge your phone. It won't be as fast with a 0 enclosure.br>br>When I did the same thing to the Mac Mini, the boot time went from just over 1 minute with the old drive to 14. The SSD takes 5 seconds to boot. It's as if you got a new computer.br>br>
"Sata 3, 6Gb/s" does not refer to the speed of the drive; rather, it refers to the combined speed of all of the sata ports. It's akin to saying that the top average speed of ten sprinters is 15 mph, implying that the track they're on is a 150 mph track. Due to the moving parts inside and the time it takes to convert the data on the magnetic disk inside, mechanical hard drives typically top out at 150MB/s. An SSD, on the other hand, has no moving parts and can transfer data at speeds of up to 500MB/s. Because the data is stored on memory chips, no time is lost due to mechanical exchange. Sata- Typically, based SSDs (including this one) have transfer speeds of 550MB/s. When purchasing an M, be cautious. There are two types of SSDs available, and you must ensure that the one you choose is compatible with your motherboard. There are two types to choose from. M., Sata 2, and Sata 3. 2 PCIe. The M. 2 Sata 3 employs Sata data lanes in the same way that your hard drive does, whereas the M. 2 PCIe style takes advantage of the PCIe data lanes' faster transfer speeds by transferring data over the same lines as your graphics card. Those SSDs have transfer speeds of up to 3500MB/s. (Please note that all speeds mentioned are READING speeds.) On any drive style, WRITE speeds are typically slower than the read speed.
If your system is capable of running M. 2 SATA III, all you have to do now is plug it in and configure your operating system to use the SSD the way you want. The Acronis software, which you can get from the WD website, does an excellent job of copying any existing SSD contents to the new one and converting it to a system bootable SSD.
Selected User Reviews For Western Digital 500GB WD Blue 3D NAND Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280, Up to 560 MB/s - WDS500G2B0B
I've had a variety of HDs throughout my life. In any case, this is a good HD from Samsung, Crucial, WD, Maxtor, and others. Unfortunately, WD cut corners on tool support for this reason. Many people will most likely do what I did and clone their hard drive. Because I only have one bay for an M2 drive, I kept my existing drive in the PC and cloned the HD using an enclosure. At least, that's how I've done it on a variety of other HDs in the past. However, if you use WD's tool (Acronis), your original drive must also be made by WD, or the application will not open. Second, if your original drive isn't WD, they require you to download the full version of Acronis. which, by the way, is $60. So that's pretty pitiful right there. Both Crucial and Samsung provide utilities for cloning a variety of hard drives. Because WD decided not to provide proper support to their customers, I ended up using a free tool called Macrium Reflect. It did a fantastic job. br>br>So once I got it cloned, there were no issues at all. After that, I had to manually resize my partition, but that's not a big deal because it's standard procedure. Perhaps this is why WD drives are a few dollars less expensive than the competition because their support tools aren't as good. If you're doing a new format or anything, you shouldn't have any issues. However, keep this in mind if you intend to clone your drive.
Quick summary: These drives are built to fail *MUCH* sooner than their paper specs would suggest, thanks to WD's "tech support" and the controller setup. This is a deliberate decision that WD does not wish to change. Long version: br>br> Unlike hard drives, SSDs have a limited lifespan and are subject to "write amplification. " The only way to write to NAND is in "pages. " When you write less than a page, you leave a section of the page blank. Although the controller can eventually stitch these smaller writes together, this slows down performance and, more importantly, means that the SSD must write many pages to fill a page. (In contrast, if the operating system knows the page size, it can write entire pages. ) ) This "write amplification" can result in a significant difference between how much data the OS writes to the drive and how much actually gets written to the NAND (which is what wears out). As a result, the drive may fail up to 10 times sooner than expected. WD does neither; a *reputable* manufacturer would advertise the page size not only in the product documentation but also in a way that the OS recognizes. The drive's only useful metric is a 512-byte length. "Sector size" is defined as a byte value. An OS that isn't actively guarding against such maliciousness risks creating a large write amplification factor (as high as 20x) and wearing out the SSD much, *much* sooner than would be the case with proper use. WD says: br>br>So, what is the *true* page size? "The information you're looking for is proprietary information that isn't available to customers. " (It's worth noting that modern SSDs are widely agreed to have a page size of at least 4KiB. ).
But. Why on earth isn't the screw included in any of the brands? I'm not going to comment on the SSD's performance because others have already done so well. br>br>My goal was to replace a 256 GB SSD in an Alienware 15 (R0 or R1, the only models that don't accept NVMe SSDs) with a 500 GB SSD. A combination of good reviews, price, and the availability of the Acronis True Image cloning software drew me to the WD Blue from a list of several options. br>br>Of course, there are a plethora of cloning software options, many of which are free and effective (we're looking at you, Easeus). The Acronis True Image left a good impression on me. I installed the SSD (what's with the SSD not including the dreaded screw?). A few cents, maybe a dollar, to add a screw to a $130-plus item. Acronis (plus product?) was loaded. The new SSD would not be found at first: I had to use Windows' Computer Management interface to bring the SSD online. You have several cloning options with Acronis: (1) an exact image that keeps all partition sizes and locations the same as they were before (you won't gain any space; you'll have to do that later); (2) Allow Acronis to increase the target partition size based on its best guess; or (3) define the target partition location and sizes manually. Option (2) would be unsuitable for me. br>br> My original SSD had six partitions (many of which were recovery partitions that I had no idea were being used, but I'll figure that out later), and Acronis would always allocate the extra space in the new SSD to the incorrect one. As a result, I chose manual cloning, which creates an initial exact-image template from which you can move and/or resize partitions on the target SSD. As a result, on the new SSD, I kept the partition order and gave the "system" partition all of the extra space. br>br>The next problem is that I use Bitlocker on all of my drives. Bitlocker-protected files will not be cloned by Acronis True Image. Encrypted partitions can be created both online and offline (using an Acronis boot disk or USB). As a result, I had to disable Bitlocker and decrypt my drives before cloning, which took a long time, and then Acronis could start the cloning process. I took a break from the cloning operation to attend to other matters. After a short time (perhaps an hour), I returned to see what other steps Acronis needed to complete the cloning process. I expected to have to set up the new boot device in Windows as a new SSD or use Acronis to do so. What I discovered was that the computer had already rebooted, with the new SSD set as the new boot device, all partitions correctly configured as I intended, and the old SSD still available and untouched (apart from the fact that it was no longer set as the boot device). br>br>It's not bad. That's not bad. br>br>So, what's the deal with not including the dreaded screw? I'm not going to take away any stars for it, but come on. Which do you think consumers would choose between two competing SSDs with comparable prices and performance, one of which includes the dreaded screw?.
Instead, if I were to build a new computer, I would opt for the 1 TB WD Blue. This is a great deal!.
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