WD Blue SN550 1TB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD as Boot Drive

[Jonodog]

Hello guys,

Could any of you advise whether it's easy, difficult or impossible to use WD Blue SN550 1TB High-Performance M.2 Pcie NVMe SSD as a boot drive? Specifically with the following build;

MOBO: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming WiFI
CPU: i7-8700K
OS: Mojave

I have seen specific Samsung m.2 Pcie NVMe drives recommended, and also that there are complications installing boot on any m.2. Is this still the case?

Many thanks in advance!!

 

[theruck]

WD black SN750 is absolutely fine and tested. This one i do not know.

 

[Bustycat]

SN550 works perfectly for me.

 

[Jonodog]

SN550 works perfectly for me.

Great news! Thanks for the reply. I have a Samsung 850 evo 500GB SATA SSD too...Can I ask, which of these would you recommend as the boot and which as storage? I will use the machine for audio production.

 

[theruck]

NVMe drive as boot/OS drive. Always

 

[Bustycat]

Great news! Thanks for the reply. I have a Samsung 850 evo 500GB SATA SSD too...Can I ask, which of these would you recommend as the boot and which as storage? I will use the machine for audio production.

It depends on your choice. I use SN550 as my primary drive storing macOS and my files, yet I have not encountered any issue. In fact it is now one of the most popular SSDs.

 

[Jonodog]

NVMe drive as boot/OS drive. Always

Yes, I understand that NVMe drive as the boot over SSD would be the accepted wisdom. It's just that I didn't do my homework properly and see that actually this particular NVMe is not that highly rated in terms of fail rates compared to Samsung products. And also, thinking if the NVMe is my bigger drive, I might benefit more from having 1TB storage rather than boot. I guess I could partition

 

[Bustycat]

Yes, I understand that NVMe drive as the boot over SSD would be the accepted wisdom. It's just that I didn't do my homework properly and see that actually this particular NVMe is not that highly rated in terms of fail rates compared to Samsung products. And also, thinking if the NVMe is my bigger drive, I might benefit more from having 1TB storage rather than boot. I guess I could partition

Actually I bought long before this review and I’ve been using it for almost 5 months.

WD Blue SN550 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Best DRAMless SSD Yet (Updated)

WD’s Blue SN550 delivers good mainstream performance at rock-bottom prices.

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