Review on Blue NAND 500GB SSD WDS500G2B0A by Davey Kamau

Now that the SSD prices are reasonable, I decided it was time to upgrade my 2011 Samsung Series 7 Chronos NP700Z5C laptop. I replaced the original Seagate 1TB 5400RPM hard drive with a Western Digital WDS200T2B90A 2TB SSD. To prepare, I used a USB 3.0 to SATA adapter that I bought here at Revain for $7. I used Acronis True Image to partition and clone the original drive and then swapped the drives. Accessing the internal components of the Series 7 involved loosening the screws securing the bottom cover, removing the drive mechanism, sliding the new drive into the drive bay, and then reassembling it in reverse order. True Image disk cloning was completed in about 45 minutes, and it took another 20 minutes to physically swap out the disks. I booted up a new drive, Windows 7 detected and installed the drivers, another reboot and I was done. It was a painless and FAST update! Did I mention fast? Wow! A system cold boot takes about 15 seconds (it used to be about 1:20), programs open almost instantly and, oh my, this pup rules! This is a 2011 quad-core Core i7 system that produced excellent results while maintaining hard drive speeds, but the difference in performance with the new SSD is AMAZING! It's literally like buying a new computer. The drive is guaranteed for 5 years or 500 TBW (terabytes of recorded data). If you have an older laptop, replacing the mechanical drive with an SSD can add several years to its lifespan.