Western Digital WD Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 3D NAND 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive

Great SSD for the price. Fast, easy to install, no issues.

I bought this WD Blue 1TB SSD to replace the ancient slow running Samsung 1TB mechanical HD in my 2014 Dell Inspiron15R laptop, which literally took 10+ minutes to boot up and fully load the operating system. This new WD Blue 1TB SSD brought new life to my old machine. It boots up in <20 seconds, and is very snappy running programs. Read and write speeds were dramatically increased as well (e.g., it took 8 hours to create a system image of the old HD vs. 2 hours to image the new SSD). It was easy to physically install too (it was slightly thinner than my old HD, so I just put 2 tiny stick-on felt pads inside the HD bay for support, and it was good to go).>>The installation procedure that I used below worked flawlessly for me (I did not use the Acronis cloning software because my laptop only has one internal HD bay and Acronis advised not to clone an existing system drive to an externally connected USB drive-bay because the cloned drive may fail to boot):1. Created a system image of the original Samsung HD using the standard Windows 10 process in control panel (saved the system image to an external USB3 HD)2. Created a system start-up/repair boot DVD when prompted to do so after the system image creation process successfully completed (my laptop has a DVD burner in it, but you can make one with a USB jump drive too)3. Shut down the laptop and removed the battery4. Removed the bottom cover on the laptop and replaced the old HD with the new WD Blue 1TB SSD5. Reinstalled the battery and turned the laptop back on with the external USB3 HD connected6. After turning laptop back on it asked for a start-up boot disc since the new SSD was blank and un-initialized7. Inserted DVD and rebooted laptop to load the system start-up/repair program8. Selected 'restore drive from system image' on the menu and it automatically searched and found the previously created system image located on the external USB3 HD9. Started the restoration process, which took about an hour to finish10. After restoration process successfully completed, I removed the system boot DVD and restarted the laptop (as instructed by Windows)11. System booted up quickly with zero problems and everything was just like the original drive in every way, only much faster! I feared all sorts of drama upon start-up with the new SSD, but I was elated to see everything worked perfectly (all existing program product keys and iTunes account mapped over transparently)As for long term reliability, I cannot say because it’s only been a few days since I installed it, but I’ve had good luck with WD products over the years (after successful SSD installation I went to WD's website and filled out the warranty registration online). The speed increase and low power consumption make this SSD an excellent upgrade from older slow HD’s. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This was one of the best decisions I've made in a while. This drive was affordable and gives me plenty of space at 1TB, which was the same as my existing drive, which was a Seagate FireCuda hybrid drive. I went with hybrid several years ago because they were more affordable and offered more storage for the money, but honestly the hybrid drives do not perform anywhere close to an SSD, so I wish I had got that instead; if I had I wouldn't be having to upgrade again.The upgrade process was effortless using the Acronis software that was provided free of charge. Note, you have to go to Western Digital's website to get it and there's noting in the included instructions that mention anything about it, so you have to know to look for it. They could have done much better with the included documentation. To find it, just click on 'Support', then follow the choices to find your particular product, then select 'Downloads' and the software is there.Acronis cloned my existing drive to the new SSD, then it was just a quick swap of the drives and done. Computer is now lightening-fast. Since I was replacing a 3.5" desktop drive, I also bought the Fenlink 2.5" to 3.5" Internal SSD Hard Drive SATA Drive Converter, which is very high quality and available here on Amazon for around $12 at the time. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ELRRKW8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. So for about $120 I feel like I have a new computer and since it's fairly high-end, I feel that the upgrade was a better choice over buying a whole new system.Spend the extra money and get an SSD from the start; you will not regret it.I highly recommend this product as Western Digital has a solid record of producing quality products and I can only hope this one is no exception. It claims to have a 5-year warranty, so I will update this review if any problems arise. However, since SSD have no mechanical parts they typically outlast traditional hard drives.