I bought this for my Dell Optiplex Desktop and i must say this is one of the best and cheapest upgrades that can be done on a laptop or desktop. I know a lot of people will have questions about SSD's. So i will try to explain things a bit.
There are basically 3 types of SSD
- 2.5 inch SATA (SATA Interface)
- M2 - MSATA
- M2 - NVME
But what's the difference ?
Now you might have noticed i have written M2 type two times. That's the catch. They look similar but perform entirely differently. MSATA sticks uses the same communication channels as the 2.5 inch SATA drive. The maximum speeds that can be attained on MSATA is around 550 MBPS.
But in NVME you can get close to 2000MBPS or even as high as 3000 MBPS. Many people are unaware of this factor and end up buying M2 MSATA or 2.5" Sata SSDs. You should always go for a NVME based one, if your Motherboard supports it. NVME works on actual PCIE bus and not SATA lines. WD Blue series also comes in 3 variants mentioned above. The MSATA and NVME sticks looks very similar, except that MSATA has 2 cuts (M key) and NVME has only 1(b key). So before you buy just check your M2 slot how it looks. If it has only 1 cut, it must support NVME, go for the NVME variant.
Performance and disk size
I bought the 250 GB variant and what i get is 1800 MBPS Read and 900 MBPS Write for Sequential read. There is a catch there also. If you buy the higher GB variants, you can get double this write speed. That means 1500 MBPS on 512 GB and 1600 MBPS on 1 TB version. Read speeds are more or less same.
How SSDs make the system fast?
Many people follow the logic that upgrading RAM is the best way to upgrade your system. But No. If you replace your hard disk, it can actually act as RAM (Page file or SWAP) as well as your internal memory. A lot of new laptops with SSD come nowadays with just 4GB RAM. Still they are fast. Now, how it works ? SSD comes with a considerable amount of transfer speed, especially for small files. Hard disks are really really slow when it comes to small tiny files, average 4K read speeds of hard disks are 3 or 4 MBPS, whole for SSD its 200 to 300 MBPS.Which is like a 100 times faster. Most of the system operations read/write small files, which makes harddisks sluggish. Forget about the 1800 MBPS Sequential speed for large files. That's yet another factor.
Which size to choose ?
I would higjhly recommend you to go for 512 or 1 TB as it has double Write speeds of 250 GB version.
How to install ?
It's very easy. But be careful, use a rubber gloves to prevent ESD. Slide in the Stick to the slot. It will rest at a 30 degree angle to the board. Now you need to insert the screws to fix it in right position.
Before you buy
.. Make sure that your board supports NVME. Check the user manual. Also check the slot and see it has only 1 cut. Not two
How much is the real world results ?
I use this on my office desktop. My Linux OS which used to take 1 minute to boot now takes 10 seconds. And earlier it took 6 minutes for my Android studio projects to be build and now its reduced to 1 minute, which is like 5-6 times faster. This much boost is obtained because my Desktop is i7 and can process too much data. So if you have a good processor you also can obtain similar results.
I know my review was bit lengthy, but i hope you found it helpful!!
| Brand | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Series | SN550 |
| Colour | Blue |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 |
| Item Height | 2.38 Millimeters |
| Item Width | 22 Millimeters |
| Product Dimensions | 8 x 2.2 x 0.24 cm; 5.67 g |
| Item model number | WDS250G2B0C |
| RAM Size | 8 GB |
| Hard Drive Size | 512 GB |
| Hard Disk Description | Solid State Hard Drive |
| Hard Drive Interface | Solid State |
| Hard Disk Rotational Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Wattage | 3.5 Watts |
| Hardware Platform | PC, Mac, Linux |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Included Components | 1 Internal Solid State Hard Drive |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Item Weight | 5.66 g |
