Customer Ratings & Reviews

Product was super easy to install and provided plenty of storage

Easy to install and integrated well. I have not had any memory or performance issues.

With a new wave of Ultra-Mobile PCs comes a new market for upgrades. The surprise success of the ASUS ROG Ally and similar handheld PCs has led several OEMs to introduce accessories and components to enhance the mobile gaming experience, and Western Digital leads the charge with one of the first M.2 2230 SSDs to break the 1TB barrier. The 2TB SN770M is among the largest 2230-size disks available at the time of this review, and while the small form factor certainly commands a premium, the SN770M is functionally identical to the larger (2280 size) SN770 released in early 2022, and thus hits a very specific niche with a hugely increased price to match. Note that this drive is sold barebone - there are no adapters, cables, or software included to transfer your data from existing disks to the SSD, and thus this product is not intended for novice users. If you are not familiar with moving or reinstalling your operating system (e.g. Windows, MacOS), speak with a Geek Squad associate for recommended services prior to purchasing. - Unboxing & Installation Unfortunately, my item came in bulk (non-retail) packaging and thus I cannot speak to the unboxing process nor included documentation for retail packaging. This NVMe M.2 disk is the smaller 2230 (22mm x 30mm) size, a little larger than the typical US quarter, and has a sticker covering the NAND with all the usual branding. This 2230 size is far less common than the 2280 (22mm x 80mm) seen in many laptop and desktop mainboards, and is intended for use in handheld PCs like the ASUS ROG Ally and similar products, which use 2230 for smaller packaging. This disk should still be compatible in most devices with full-size M.2 slots as they usually include screw holes for installing 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280 size disks - but if you have the option for a larger disk there are many more options to choose from. Installing the SN770M is as simple as installing any other M.2 SSD. Once recognized by the system, the disk will need to be initialized then formatted by the operating system prior to use (this typically occurs during an OS installation). Western Digital uses the 1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes metric to market the drive; thus, formatted capacity is 1,863 GB. It does appear that this disk has a full 2TB onboard, but WD (as with most major OEMs) over-provisioned the drive so that the remaining space is used to spread writes and reduce overall wear on the NAND memory. A five-year, 600 terabytes written warranty should cover most use cases as only power users will see that much data written within five years, much less ten. - Performance As a Gen 4 SSD, only more recent devices will be able to run this disk at full speed. It’s fully backward compatible with Gen 3 devices, but this will limit maximum read/write performance to 4GB per second, while Gen 4 can reach 8GB per second - though whether a disk can reach either of these numbers is dependent on the drive’s hardware and quality. Installed in my ASUS ROG Ally, a PCIe Gen4 device, the SN770M readily exceeds the 4GB per second maximum that the older PCIe Gen 3 standard allows. WD claims a maximum read of 5,150 MB/s and maximum write of 4,850 MB/s, and in my testing I saw reads cap out just short of 5,100 MB/s with writes peaking around 4,700 MB/s, which are both right in line with expectations and overhead from background software. I have seen full size (M.2 2280) Gen 4 SSDs reach higher speeds, but the specialized form factor here is certainly a limiter. The important factor is that random read/write performance is just as strong as any competing Gen 4 SSD, with load times for both games and Windows 11 itself improving over the original disk - though we’re only talking a few seconds in either situation, the improvement is small but noticeable. The SN770M’s performance is made all the more impressive by a lack of DRAM cache (as one might expect, the 2230 size doesn’t allow for much in the way of supporting hardware). Without a dedicated buffer to cache writes, WD’s disk relies on its NAND controller to do this work, and I’m pleased to report I didn’t encounter any slowdown when doing long writes to the disk - however, I only filled about 1TB in testing, and it’s after this point that any deficiencies in the controller’s management will come to light as the controller utilizes free space on the disk as its cache area. This is a common technique that budget SSDs employ to keep costs down and performance reasonable, as DRAM is much more expensive per byte than NAND flash, but usually comes with noticeable performance losses as the drive fills up since less space is available for caching. - Bottom Line Performance is up to snuff, which leaves only the value proposition to discuss. While the 2230 size is a specialty that commands a premium, the SN770M is effectively the same product as the larger, 2280-size SN770, which is available for less than half the price as of this review (and in fact is still significantly cheaper than the 1TB version of the SN770M). If you need a large-capacity 2230 disk for your Ally or a similar device, this is one of the few options on the market currently that will satisfy that need, but it’s hard to swallow such a high MSRP even for this form factor. If you can’t wait for the M.2 2230 market to saturate and prices to come down, then this comes conditionally recommended.

I installed this 2TB SSD into my ROG ALLY and was able to nearly quadruple its storage capacity - which is a fantastic improvement. Games run much noticeably better when stored on the internal SSD compared to a Micro SD card. Because the default 512 GB fills up incredibly quickly, swapping to a larger SSD is absolutely worth the money. I have only seen marginal loading improvement with the larger SSD, but I still feel as though the upgrade is a worth while investment. The physical task of swapping the SSD cards is incredibly quick and easy - taking less than two minutes. But, using the ASUS Cloud Recovery can be an absolute hellish nightmare. Before you start the process of swapping the SSD cards, make sure that you have completed ALL of the available Windows and ASUS software updates. As long as all of the software is up to date, you should have no issues recovering the software and restarting the ALLY. ...Be aware that the recovery process can be quite slow and depends on the speed of your WiFi network. If you want to speed up the process, you can connect the ROG to a docking station that has a physical connection to your network. To add the new card: Simply remove the screws on the back of the Ally and lift off the back of the device. Unplug the battery connector ribbon. Then lift the black plastic cover to see the default SSD. Remove the screw that holds the card in place and you can unplug the old SSD and insert the new larger card. Then reverse the process to put the Ally back together. See the attached pictures for examples of the screw and SSD locations.

The Solid State 2GB Hard Drive is a fantastic solution for anyone needing quick and dependable storage. Despite its small capacity, it delivers blazing-fast read and write speeds, making file transfers and boot times incredibly smooth. Its solid-state design means no moving parts, so it’s durable and resistant to shocks—perfect for portable use or legacy systems. Installation is effortless, and the performance boost compared to traditional drives is noticeable right away. If you’re looking for a reliable upgrade for older hardware or a lightweight storage option, this SSD is a great choice!

So far it has held up to the specs it was advertised. Have reached both the right and read speeds in my tablet just fine. Does run a little hot but that's to be expected for the type of drive that it is.

It's fast, but runs hot. Still, 2TB in this form factor is great.

It worked after some trouble shooting. I installed it on an MSI claw handheld, and this model has known issues with windows 11.

This is a great drive. It holds pleantty of data and is fast. It is expensive though. If you are able to get a 2280 version of the same drive, save the money and get it. Also, make sure the drive in the box matches what you bought. I had to exchange this for another because the first one had the wrong size drive sealed in it from the manufacturer.

Does what it needs to, also sports good speeds. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. You can get something just as good for less on amazon, but at least you're getting a trusted brand name.

I only ever had one problem and that was that some models of WD SSDs have a driver issue with new Windows updates and this was one of them. I did the research and learned to download the SanDisk Dashboard to be able to get the newest driver. Once I knew what to do it took all of about a minute to download and install and fix my problem. Another one of those minor inconveniences but overall a great product.

Used it as an external ssd. Gets the job done. Not much else to say

Good and works but if you are buying for the rog ally and can wait you could order a aftermarket chip online not on Best buy that fits into slot allowing for a 2280 SSD m.2 chip allowing for even more storage.

Great upgrade for the ROG ALLY. Very fast and easy install. Over priced for the amount of storage , on par price for 4tb drives that are full sized

Good deal and good products, I got a good customer service and I got what I need quickly with a good price.

work great with windows. Could not get it to work on the xBox Series S as internal or with expansion card

very efficient and good quality I would recommend it to more people.

what i wanted but not exactly what i needed.......