WD Blue WDS500G1B0A 500 GB Internal SSD Solid State Drive, SATA 6 GB/s 2.5 Inch

My first SSD and I am very impressed with the ease of installation, cloning and the instant speed increase in boot up and applications. I went for a 500GB to match the existing HDD I had installed and make cloning easy. It is well worth the money and the best performance increase I have seen through one component change ever - and I had my first PC in 1987. There are many manufacturers in the SSD market and I went for WD because of the previous experience I have had on performance and reliability with a range of previouis WD HDD and a My Cloud.

I normally buy Samsung EVO SSD's, but I've been using 3.5" WD hard drives for 20+ years and its about time WD came the SSD market.Packaging same as any other SSD branded retail cardboard package, the drive was housed in a plastic bag and finally in a plastic blister pack for that extra protection haha and that's it, no paperwork at all in the box not even the usual crap that no one ever reads in a 1000 languages (hurray)The drive like any other SSD seems well built, nothing loose or rattling around inside.I Installed the SSD with Windows 10 on a new build i7 7700K with all the bells n whistles and boy does this drive fly, I'm not that nerdy to start posting facts and figures but this thing is fast noticeably for me faster than my Samsung EVO which is only a couple of months old. I've been a die hard Samsung EVO SSD man for a few years now and that's about to change If this drive has reliability (Only time will tell)To the login screen, desktop and starting applications/Games this definitely feels quicker than the Samsung EVO and its slightly cheaper than the Samsung EVO.I'll not mark the SSD down for Amazon's terrible packaging but to box the SSD and Intel i7 in a cardboard surround forcing the retail boxes flatter so both items fit then ramming it into my letterbox is NOT a good idea! to give you an idea of the size of the Amazon box used it was the type used for a game!

Using this to store several virtual servers on my home lab environment (SQL, Exchange, Skype for Business), so performance and stability are key, particularly when driving real-time media applications. Been in a month since purchase and it has lived up to expectations, unlike the Crucial MX series drives it replaced. Price was reasonable in July 2017 and with storage being on an ever upwards trajectory, price will inevitably drop as time goes on, so very much recommended - at least for a domestic PC - if you need to strike the right balance between capacity, performance and budget.

Good reliable SSD. Faster boot times but time will tell how long it will last. One minor drawback, it should include handles that can be fixed to the base with screws. Currently it can only be inserted into its designated slot but without securing it with any screws. If you are on the move, a sudden shake may displace the SSD from its slot?

Quick SSD drive which matches the performance of the Samsung EVO range.My current PC C: drive was running out of space, especially with backing up I device with Itunes. The current drive is a Kingston 512GB SSD using a SATA connection with the BIOS set to use AHCI. The PC being a Shuttle XPC X38. Latest BIOS update being used.As I needed to clone the drive I used cloning software. On connecting the drive on a spare SATA connection etc... and powered on the PC and checked the BIOS. The drive wasn't being seen for use as a bootable drive in AHCI. Yet on playing around using IDE and RAID it would.In the end I managed to get this to work on another PC which needed upgrading, another Shuttle XPC SH55J which would be seen fine.Yet on the X38 PC a Samsung SSD drive could be seen. My only conclusion is that the drive WD put out may need a firmware update. Or my older PC won't see WD SSDs as it's too old? Unfortunately Western Digital don't give you any documentation or any discs with software. Looking at their Website it's even more confusing. As when you choose WD blue, the software given is only meant for external drives like their passport range etc....Apart from that, it's just a plug in and off you go affair. As for performance there is no speed difference with the Samsung 512 GB 840 EVO it originally replaced.

I used this to upgrade from a Crucial 250Gb drive and am pleased Western Digital have joined the SSD club as all my other internal and external drives are WD. The reliability is second to none and if you still have a mechanical drive in your laptop or desktop I suggest you buy one of these. It boots up in seconds and is lightening quick when running programs. A fantastic addition to any computer.

Product is fine, the way I want to use it is being restricted by NUC bare bones, will give a better review when I can configure it

I would not buy this again. I bought it because it came with Acronis software. The software would not accept the serial number of the drive. II tried to contact bot Acronis and WD. After 25 mins I gave up on Acronis. Still no response from WD.