Customer Ratings & Reviews

I had an Apple iMac 2013 that was painfully slow. It had a 1TB 5400 RPM stock HDD from when I bought it. The computer took several minutes to boot up and almost a minute to launch apps. I finally got fed up and looked into what I could do with the computer or just get rid of it. I found link talking about upgrading HDD to get big performance boost. The computer has an Intel i5 quad core and 8 GB of DDR3, so not terribly slow, especially for web and office apps. I had to purchase adhesive tape for screen online and perform some surgery, but it worked. HUGE performance increase. Running OSX and Windows 10, both very snappy now. I can't say for other SSD's, but this one seems great to me. Still not a loaded out gaming system, but it gave the old computer some life. I needed another computer working from home and with kids home schooling now and this cost me about $80 total for the system upgrade. Highly recommend.

Works excellently, I really recommend this SSD for all types of computers.

After installation, my computer is night and day difference in speed! Very happy with the purchase. One thing for those not familiar with installing. When you first plug in to USB to clone the drive, your computer may not recognize that it’s a drive. I had to go to disk management and “initialize” it as an SSD. Attached below are pictures on how to do that. At first, I thought it was defective but that fixed my problem.

I have bought 3 of these SSDs, they are great, fast, one was installed in a gamers pc for my windows to be much faster and the other 2 I use them to protect more than 200,000 pictures that I had on a 3 terabyte mechanical hard drive and I needed to back up in a reliable drive.

The WD Blue 500GB ssd offers great value & performance in one small package. Installation was a breeze and since it comes in the 2.5 inch drive form factor you can put it in a desktop or laptop PC. The speeds and access times are MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than your standard old mechanical drives and I was blown away by how fast my PC turned on. My PC start up time went from 20 seconds to 4 seconds! The drive also comes with a 3 year warranty which is a lot higher than the standard 1 year warranty that other companies offer. The drive offers a ton of performance and a decent size of storage (more than enough for your standard user) all at entry level prices I definitely recommend it. Let me know if you have any questions regarding the drive or how to set it up.

This is a nice and reliable ssd drive that I purchased for new pc gaming build. This drive loads programs quickly and makes gaming load time quicker. The drive can be mounted different way by it small sleek design.

Required a drive to overcome a I/O bottleneck in an older system. System thermals decreased, a secondary benefit of the drive's true claim to fame. Test after test on client's aged 2012 system - hit the "up to" mark consistently, while 10Pro image unpacked and updates (pause these), without a drop in consistency. Samsung 860 EVO is a remarkable option. RAPID mode disabled, performance and price scale in WD favor. By no means is this a budget drive, if you've read this far, NAND architecture wareants the slight orice increase.

IT IS SUPER FAST AND QUIET IT'S THE BEST HARD DRIVE I HAVE ERER OWNED

I had to reinstall the OS on other brands it takes about 30 min on this SSD it took 20 min.

WD Blue is a great SSD for the cost. At the price it can be found is a solid option against other SSD's. Im using it as a secondary Disk.

Replacing the mechanical drive with this solid state drive did wonders on improving my Windows 10 pc performance (especially boot up time). Highly Recommend.

Good service from the Geeks I transferred my information from my HP pavilion to my Lenovo

works great. Super faster than HDD Highly suggested for old PC.

Can’t wait to use this in my new build, it looks amazing!!

==== Summary ==== The WD Blue 500GB SSD is a fantastic drive. It greatly sped up my Lenovo Legion Y530 laptop that originally came with a spinning mechanical 1TB HDD and a 16GB Intel Optane Memory Accelerator. Everything I do on my laptop has received an adrenaline boot - bootup, shutdown, Chrome with >25 tabs, multi-tasking, and local & network file transfers. The 3-Year warranty is great and so is the Western Digital SSD Dashboard app that handles Firmware Updates and SMART diagnostics. ***Pros: -Fast performance. -Easy to install and set up (used Acronis TrueImage cloning software). -WD SSD Dashboard software is helpful. -3-Year warranty. ***Cons: -None ==== My Experience ==== I've been using Western Digital hard drives from 2002 - the first year I began building custom PC's and tinkering with hardware and software. I've purchased many, many drives since then and not a single Western Digital drive has ever failed on me (knock on wood). Based on past experiences, I'm hopeful that my first SSD drive from WD will also be quality and last me a long time. This 500GB SSD drive was installed to my Lenovo Legion Y530 laptop that came with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA3 2.5" spinning drive and a 16GB Intel Optane Memory accelerator (M.2 2280 NVME). The transition of my Windows 10 installation from the Seagate drive to the WD SSD went very smoothly thanks to the Acronis TrueImage disk cloning software. Although the Intel Optane Memory accelerator does an outstanding and admirable job of speeding up the slow mechanical drive, it still cannot compare to a system with a SSD drive. Upon installing the SSD, I immediately noticed speed differences during restarts and power on, Windows 10 initialization after cold bootups, application launch times, and file transfer speeds. The system became even faster after I activated the Intel Optane Memory accelerator to speed up the WD SSD (I had to de-link the coupling between the Intel Optane Memory and Seagate hard drive first). I ran CrystalDiskMark 6.0.1 and my Sequential Read was 925.2 MB/s and Sequential Write was 159.4 MB/s. Due to Intel Optane Memory, the Sequential Read speed was what I was expecting but I don't know why Sequential Write came out so low. I ran CrystalDiskMark several times and used other hard drive benchmarks but the results came out very similar. Nonetheless, in real world usage, I've experienced no performance issues with the WD SSD. It made my laptop fast and snappy and I'm quite happy and satisfied with Western Digital. I give it a 10 out of 10~!!

This Western Digital Blue SSD is very solid performer in the SSD world. It performs close to its advertised specs and has kept up its performance over several hours of constant usage. Having a MTTF of 1.75M hours is quite impressive, especially when compared to the industry leading Samsung 860 EVO, which only has 1.5M hours. There isn't much to say about an SSD that does its job outside of price/performance. With that said, there are two SSD's that I would consider solid contenders for this WD Blue SSD, and they are: Samsung 860 EVO, and Crucial MX500. You can get all three for the same price, and they all offer over 500 MB/s read and write capabilities. Only noticeable difference is that the Western Digital only offers 3 years warranty whereas the other two offer 5. At the end of the day, the average user will most likely never even reach the advertised MTTF before they upgrade their PC and buy a new SSD. Speed is irrelevant when it's this fast doing daily tasks, unless you're heavily relying on it. I have a hard time telling the difference between my 960 EVO that boasts over 2000 MB/s read/write versus this Western Digital at 500. Would I recommend this SSD? Yes, of course. It does everything it says it could and has one of the highest life expectancy for an SSD. I definitely was not disappointed and would add the Western Digital Blue SSD to my choice of SSD's in the future.

its junk i have a 500 and a 1TB both just Stopped. I would Not recommend this SSD to my worst enemy < pure trash

Pros Very affordable upgrade Legacy SATA interface means maximum compatibility Read and Write speeds are nearly the highest possible for SATA III High MTBF should mean great reliability Acronis Imaging software included via download SSD has no moving parts to worry about in a laptop Cons Included information doesn’t indicate imaging software is included free Documentation does not list Acronis True Image available as free download No accessories or instructions Although delayed, Western Digital is now fully into the business of producing SSDs the WD way. Just like traditional hard drives, WD SSDs come in green, blue, and black consumer SSDs. The same colors indicate the same purpose they always have with Blue drives being the middle of the pack for performance and warranty. The Western Digital 500GB Blue SSD uses a traditional SATA III connection for maximum compatibility to allow older systems to take advantage of the speed boost. The kit includes only the basics with no screws or software. Only the SSD and a small pamphlet are in the box. This might be in retail packaging but it is definitely intended for install by someone who already has the knowledge. Although not listed on the box, Acronis True Image is a free download from the Western Digital website. This free software allows you to back up your original hard drive for restoration on the new SSD if you wish but this would require an external hard drive to perform. Instructions otherwise are non-existent. Out of the box, the drive is of a plastic construction and so light it feels as if there is nothing in it. Unfortunately this plastic casing even extends to the screw holes so a gentle hand is recommended. Once in place, the only possible downside of the plastic case is heat dissipation. If you are concerned about temps, a free utility called Western Digital SSD Dashboard is also available. Beyond temperature monitoring, other functions such as turning on and run trim are largely redundant if you are running Windows 8 or 10. Going from a traditional hard drive to a the Western Digital Blue SSD is a noticeable speed boost. Windows starts up markedly faster, programs launch near instantaneously, and freezes are pauses are non-existent. It is rated at 1.75 Million MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) meaning reliability should be very good. Combine that with no moving parts and the worries of crashing your hard drive from a small drop of your laptop are gone. If you install this in a laptop, you should also see a modest improvement in battery life but more importantly, instant wake from sleep. Performance is as good as can be expected on a SATA III interface with 561MBps Sequential Read and 515MBps Sequential Write. It’s worth noting that after repeated test the read speed regularly exceeded the specs. Of course proper SSD benchmarks take much longer than running simple, free test but this should give a reasonable idea of overall performance. If you get much lower speeds you might have other underlying issues such a bad cable, lower spec controller, or older drivers. For all but the most demanding purposes this is more than enough. Combine a very reasonable price with sizes up to 1TB and you have a very compelling upgrade for your traditional hard drive. If you have some knowledge of replacing parts in your computer and are comfortable working with imaging software, the Western Digital Blue SSD is a good value upgrade from your traditional hard drive.

Your expectations and price point will be crucial if considering purchasing this drive. If you are looking to upgrade to something that will boot Windows faster, speed up your day to day processing tasks, extend battery life of a laptop and not have to worry about any moving disk platters – this is a worthy product and I would recommend it. But for gaming or applications needing intensive read/write functions be aware there are faster drives with newer technology. 3 year warranty... To give you an idea of what this drive can do for older machine in particular… I have an older Sony VAIO laptop with; Intel Core i5 (2nd Gen) 2410M / 2.3 GHz processor 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM And 500GB Seagate ST95005620AS 7200RPM hybrid hard drive. I am attaching its not to impressive CrystalDiskMark score. It takes about 20 seconds to boot Windows 10 with very few startup programs, which for its time was pretty fast. I replaced the hard drive with the WD and boot time is now less than 10 seconds and its CrystalDiskMark score is radically faster as you can see. Also it is being limited as laptop only has SATAII connection. Money well spent if looking for more of an entry level SSD.

Western Digital’s line of solid state disks came about after the company acquired SanDisk. The Blue line of SSDs aims to achieve a parallel to WD’s mechanical hard drives: great everyday performance with strong cost-per-gigabyte value. While the WD Blue PC SSD 500GB Internal SATA Solid State Drive for Laptops delivers on the performance proposition relative to any mechanical hard drive, this drive offers budget-class speeds at a premium price. Note that this drive is sold barebone; that is, the only thing in the box is the drive itself. There are no adapters, cables, or software included to transfer your data from your existing hard disk 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), I highly recommend that you speak with a Geek Squad associate prior to purchasing for recommended services. - Build Quality There is little to say about this drive...most SATA solid state disks are the same and only vary externally. I was disappointed to find the mounting holes for hard drive screws were all plastic rather than metal, but realistically this will not make any significant difference in any machine. It feels lighter than most and at 7mm height will fit in virtually any desktop or laptop without issue. - Performance Compared to the hard drive this SSD replaced, the difference is dramatic. Boot time on a Windows 10 installation shrunk from over a minute to under 15 seconds, and the system is significantly more responsive all around. Apps open quicker, web browsers are much faster to respond, and updates are no longer a chore. This is typical for most SSDs, of course, but WD technically delivers on its promise by being light-years faster in all aspects. Unfortunately, against all of the solid state disks I’ve used throughout the years, this SSD ranks among the slowest (eMMC notwithstanding). Benchmarks showed a maximum sequential throughput of 365 MB/s read and 386 MB/s write on a SATA-III connection, with average speeds a bit short of those numbers. Random read/write revealed a similar story: speeds that are well below par for even early-generation solid state drives. Today's value-oriented drives can hit upwards of 500MB/s easily, and results were consistent across two computers I tested this drive in. I’m truthfully stunned that WD chose to brand this as a Blue drive rather than relegating it to the budget-oriented Green line or shuffling it into OEM channels, as these are not strong numbers by any stretch. The benchmark numbers don't even hit within 80% of their performance as rated on the packaging, which suggests speeds up to 545 MB/s Read and 525 MB/s write. - Bottom Line Although a casual user will notice a major difference upgrading to this disk from a traditional hard drive, this SSD does not compete with other offerings at or near its MSRP, which is already pushing higher-end territory. I am very disappointed that Western Digital is selling a drive that falls so short of performance expectations, as I have known them as a reliable, high quality hard drive manufacturer for over two decades, and this foray into the SSD space is a letdown. Not recommended.