Question 1

Is this a sata drive or an m.2 drive? the picture is of an m.2 but the descriptions sounds like it's a sata drive.

Accepted Answer

It is an m.2 drive with a sata 3 connection. Read this https://rog.asus.com/articles/product-news/ssd-guide-pci-express-m-2-msata-and-sata-express-the-differences-explained/ and make sure your mobo accepts 2280 m.2

Question 2

I know it states pc as platform but does anyone know if this will work for a mac? my mac currently has a similar ssd. thanks

Accepted Answer

I have installed WD Blue SSDs in my 2014 Mac Mini and in my 2015 21" iMac and have had no problem at all.  The connectors are standard SATA, which is what both of my Macs had.  So no adapters needed.

Disk Utility  was able to format the drive as a GIUD partition and then I used Carbon Copy Cloner to the old hard drive over to the SSD in an external enclosure. CCC also made the SSD a bootable volume (it copied EVERYTHING ... OS, applications, and data files).  Once the SSD had everything on it I took the precaution of setting System Preferences/Startup Drive to the SSD (while it was still in the external enclosure) to confirm that it would boot from that drive.  I knew it was booting from the SSD because normally my computer would take just over 3 minutes to boot from the old drive.  When I booted it from the external SSD it booted in 27 seconds.  By the way, the external enclosure was a USB 3.0 enclosure.  If you use a USB 2.0 enclosure it won't be as fast.

When I did the same thing to the Mac Mini the boot time went from just over 1 minutes with the old drive to 14.5 seconds booting from the SSD.

It's like having a brand new computer.

Question 3

In the title i see a speed of sata iii 6 gb/s which is what my hard drive says for its speed. does that mean they will perform equally?

Accepted Answer

"Sata 3, 6Gb/s" is not the speed of the drive itself, it is the speed of the lanes which all of the sata ports use, combined. It's somewhat like saying the top average speed of 10 sprinters is 15mph, so the track they are running on is a 150mph track. Mechanical hard drives usually top out at a transfer speed of 150Mb/s, due to the moving parts inside, and the time it takes to convert the data on the magnetic disk inside. An SSD on the other hand, has no moving parts. The data is stored on memory chips, meaning there is no time lost in mechanical exchange. Sata-based SSD's (including this one) typically top out at 550Mb/s transfer speeds. Be careful when you are buying a M.2 style SSD, as you have to make sure that your motherboard supports the one you are choosing. There are 2 different types. M.2 Sata 3, and M.2 PCIe. The M.2 Sata 3 uses the Sata data lanes, just as your hard drive does, while the M.2 PCIe style takes advantage of the faster transfer speeds of the PCIe data lanes, and transfers the data through the same lines that your graphics card uses. Those SSD's can go as high as 3500Mb/s transfer speeds. (All speeds mentioned are READ speeds. WRITE speeds tend to be less than the given read speed on any drive style.)

Question 4

so this just straight up plugs into m2 slots what about the ears on the end? thinking about adding this as a 2nd m2 in my gaming rig

Accepted Answer

If your rig is compatible with M.2 SATA III, it is just a matter of plugging it in and configuring the operating system to how you want to use the SSD. The Acronis software you can download from WD website does a solid job of copying any existing SSD contents to the new one and making it as the system bootable SSD.

ASIN	B09ZYQG5C1
Additional Features	Data Recovery Service
Best Sellers Rank	#191 in Internal Solid State Drives
Brand	SANDISK
Built-In Media	SATA SSD
Cache Memory Installed Size	500
Color	Blue
Compatible Devices	Laptop, PC
Compatible Video Game Console Models	Sony PlayStation 5
Connectivity Technology	SATA
Customer Package Type	Standard Packaging
Customer Reviews	4.3 out of 5 stars 2,118 Reviews
Data Transfer Rate	560 megabytes_per_second
Digital Storage Capacity	500 GB
Enclosure Material	Information Not Available
Form Factor	M.2 2280
Hard Disk Description	Solid State Drive
Hard Disk Form Factor	2.5 inches
Hard Disk Interface	Serial ATA-600
Hard-Drive Size	500 GB
Hardware Connectivity	Solid State Drive
Hardware Platform	PC, laptop
Installation Type	Solid State Drive
Item Dimensions L x W x Thickness	3.15"L x 0.87"W x 0.09"Th
Item Type Name	Solid State Drive
Item Weight	4.54 g
Manufacturer	Sandisk Technologies, Inc.
Media Speed	510
Mfr Part Number	WDS500G3B0B
Model Name	WD Blue SA510 SATA SSD
Model Number	WDS500G3B0B
Number of Items	1
Read Speed	560 megabytes_per_second
Special Feature	Data Recovery Service
Specific Uses For Product	Business, Content Creation, Multimedia
Unit Count	1 Count
Warranty Description	5 year limited warranty

WD Blue SA510 500GB SATA SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280, Internal Solid State Drive, Up to 560 MB/s - WDS500G3B0B

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