Western Digital 1TB WD Red SA500 NAS 3D NAND Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5/7mm, Up to 560 MB/s - WDS100T1R0A

Let me state at the outset that I’m not a network guy, nor did I get this for NAS use. For those not really informed about what a NAS is or what is does, let me fill you in. NAS stands for Network Access Storage. For private and commercial applications where you want to be able to access data from multiple computers or devices, you’d generally use a NAS rig with multiple drives linked together for mass storage. This WD Red M.2 SSD is intended for NAS applications. That is, for network storage applications as opposed to as a general computer drive. It is specifically designed to allow for parallel data access (multiple users accessing it at once), as well as long term read/write reliability far beyond what a typical desktop SSD would require or expect. Both things are extremely useful in NAS storage applications. This drive is rated at about 350TB written (TBW) before it wears out and data won’t be written successfully on it any longer. Your average desktop SSD of the same size will be rated in the 120 to 200 TBW range. The 350TBW rating of this drive is quite a bit lower than some of the NAS drive offerings from Seagate, but at this price it’s not terrible. For consumer based use on a regular computer, 350TBW would take a decade or longer to reach. In other words, its reliability is wasted on consumer use. In my case, I got this drive because Vine offered it and because I had need for a SSD for use in one of my laptops. I never really had any intention to use it for NAS storage. In this application it’s probably not the best option, though it’s certainly capable. It’s not the fastest SSD you could get for consumer computer use and in a desktop application its other benefits won’t be utilized. It’s also more expensive than other better options designed for consumer PCs. But let’s say you do use it in a basic computer application. Over a regular mechanical magnetic storage drive, it’s still going to be loads faster. Your traditional 7200rpm magnetic storage mechanical drive transfers at about 120MB a second. This SSD has a practical transfer rate of about 600mb/s . That’s a significant boost and one that you’ll feel when trying to retrieve data, or if using as a boot drive, with how fast Windows boots and responds. In my own use, this was put into an 8 year old laptop with a 2nd generation i5. The laptop works quite well considering its age and the old CPU is perfectly capable of handling almost all basic computing tasks and internet browsing, but the hard drive on it was failing. A SSD to SATA enclosure later and it was installed. The laptop has new lease on life and has been used for school work and other things by my kids since then. The Laptop is far more responsive and snappy than it had been with the old SATA Mechanical drive… including compared to when it was new. Yeah, I suppose I’m wasting the drive on such a use. Bottom Line: I can’t give a rating on this drive for its intended purpose for NAS storage, but as far as being used as a consumer computer drive, it’s quick enough and reliable enough for my needs. I don’t doubt that in NAS applications it’ll function just as well.

Plug and play. Using in a robust custom built computer running just Windows 10. Hosting movies to run on Plex server and streaming has been fast and flawless.

Popped this into my NVR for use with my home security camera system. Works great and a noticeable speed upgrade from the HDD i was running previously. Will probably pick up a few more and RAID them! Only downside is it doesnt come with mounting screws, but this isnt a huge deal.

I bought these drive for my Synology NAS and these drives are compatible with Synology. Easy to install and always preferred WD over the other brands.

A++

This will fit yoga 2 13

Works good, no problems.

29 May 2023: A review for two purchased: Western Digital 1TB WD Red SA500 NAS 3D NAND Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5/7mm. Ive had them a couple of months. No problems. Got them to replace two Samsung 870EVOs that died in a little less than 2 years. Samsung has some real problems and it took over 3 months to get replacements under warranty from Samsung. Right after they failed, I switched to these Western Digitals because I have used WD drives since 1994 and in my little life in my little home WD drives have been stellar performers. I have to say that all my past experience with WD has been with spinning platters. I hope these solid state drives are also reliable. Breakneck speeds dont impress me much. I just love good performance for a long, long time. So...the RED line from WD is supposed to be exactly that--constant running over the long haul in devices. Yep. I hope that is true. WD, do it to me again. I need you.

We added this Western Digital (WD) Network Attached Storage (NAS) to our Print Server....”YES”

Works great on day1!