Western Digital WD Blue 250GB 3D NAND SATA 6Gb/s, M.2-2280 Internal Solid State Drive

This is a great little M.2 for the price. I installed the 250GB in my mid-range gaming laptop and am very happy with the performance so far. Boots up in seconds and overall my games run much smoother. If you are upgrading from a HDD, prepare to be blown away by the speed of these little dudes! For the average and even above average user, the SATA M.2 offer more than enough speed and performance. I personally didn't need a high end M.2 for my laptop, as it's not my main device. What's great about M.2 is you can keep your current hard drive and boot the OS and your favorite games from the M.2, keeping the old hard drive just for regular storage.Although these are faster than traditional hard drives, don't expect performance equivalent to a higher end NVME M.2, which run easily ~$40 more for the same amount of storage. If you're looking at building a high end gaming PC, don't skimp out on the M.2 and buy a NVME, not a SATA. There's a noticeable difference between the two and it's definitely worth the cost if you've already splurged on other components. Just make sure your board is compatible before you buy.I've seen a few reviewers complaining about there not being mounting hardware included. As with most M.2 drives, it does not come with the standoff or the screw. Those will usually be included with your motherboard or you will need to order. Be careful the screw fits properly and is not too long or you could damage the other side of your board. It HAS to have a standoff (the little riser) or it will not install properly!Overall I'm very pleased with this SSD, especially for the low price.TLDR;-Noticeably slower than higher end (NVME) M.2, but still fast enough for most users unless building a very high end gaming rig.-If you don't have mounting hardware, purchase some as it is not included.-Check your owner's manual of your motherboard or your laptop to make sure your computer is compatible with M.2 if you're unsure. Not all of them have slots for it.

I purchased two SSDs in the M.2 version. I bought one for my laptop and another for my desktop gamer PC. I bought a WD hard drive for my first PC build and it worked flawlessly so I decided to trust WD again for two SSDs and I think I made the right choice. The installation is fairly simple. You remove a screw from the M.2 SSD slot, you plug the M.2 SSD in the correct slot and then you secure it with the screw you just took out.IMPORTANT OBSERVATION: I have read several reviews and posts from people here and in other forums saying that their motherboard DID NOT come with the required screw so they had to purchase this separately. I purchased a kit that came with a screwdriver and screws for an ASUS motherboard (the brand I had on my desktop PC) just in case this happened but I didn't use it because my motherboard had the screw and the screwdriver I planned on using worked as intended. Once installed, I decided to move everything from my hard drive to an external hard drive and then did a clean install of Windows 10 onto the SSD and I formatted my hard drive.The difference is INSANE!!!Both my laptop and PC boot in under 20 seconds! Everything I click opens instantly, I really have no words for how impressive the difference is. I can't believe the amount of time I have been wasting before I decided to purchase an SSD. ANYONE who can spare $50 should purchase one RIGHT NOW! You owe it to yourself to use a PC or a laptop that is fast and responds exactly how you want it to respond.Final thoughts: I think this isn't the fastest Sata SSD in the market but I honestly don't care. The boot up time is amazing, opening web browsers and programs is a breeze and the machine feels even better than when I bought it! I will continue purchasing SSDs from WD and I recommend that everyone gets an SSD as soon as possible! Please experience this for yourself, you won't regret it!This is the laptop that I am using to write this review and the one that I installed the SSD to: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Acer+E5-575-33BM&qid=1579978908&sr=8-4This is my gaming PC motherboard and where I installed the second SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K2R69PQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1If you have any kind of questions, feel free to ask and I'll answer as best as I can.

So, this junk laptop came with a standard "Hard Drive" which was massively slow, bottlenecked the entire system. It was like I was back in the 1990's the tech was so bad.Finally, found out it had an SSD slot in it, but this particular model could only apparently take "Standard" M.2 SSD's of this type, NOT NVME's... per the Manual for my laptop as found on HP's website.Was going to get a Samsung one, but would have had to wait, and it cost a little more, and this was a cheap laptop for backup only, so, didn't need to bother, a WD should be good enough.Anyway, put it in, and it works AMAZING... The speed is light and day. So fast that I don't even know that I would notice the difference on this laptop between it and an NVME.I mean seriously, it's like at least 30 TIMES faster than the Hard Drive...Anyway, it works great, updated to the latest Windows 10, Windows Update had most of the drivers already, through the "optional updates" also. Think I only needed to go into Device Manager and manually update the Graphics card. I then installed the Intel Drive Assistant, and it found two more that need updating apparently, graphics card and wireless card. Seems all good...Happy to finally have the laptop how it should have been in the first place, at least in basic functioning. One flaw with these also is the keys not being backlit... Anyway, backup, so I don't care.

Purchased this as a replacement/addition for my old Lenovo laptop. After installing it and re configuring the partitions, the laptop was working again and getting updates.