Silicon Power 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 SSD R/W up to 3,400/3,000MB/s (SU002TBP34A80M28AB)

I bought this to put in my iMac 27 2017 and put it in a NVMe USB C Thunderbolt adapter to transfer the files via migration. HOLY COW even externally my MacOS runs insanely faster than it did on my Fusion set up that came in it. So fast and with no lagging that Ive been too lazy to attempt a proper 4hr long installation. lol. Im moving huge video files around with no lagging or anything so... idk if I am even going to put it inside the machine now. lol. Itd sure be easier to resell the imac in a couple years if I dont pop it open and leave in the stock stuff (and not void my AppleCare). Anywho. GO FOR IT! This gets speeds of 2000+/1300+ R/W EXTERNALLY via USB-C with the OS also running on it when testing. lol.

Most All M.2 / NVME drives deliver performance. Silicon Powers 512GB offers everything a Samsung M.2 has at a lower cost. (I own two of these). This review will start out with practical information the moving into the more technical aspect of the SP 512GB NVME drive. This will be a long review. The biggest concern for anyone buying this is: How can I use this if I dont have a slot on my motherboard for a M.2 SSD?. You need to get an adapter like this: QNINE NVME PCIe Adapter, M.2 NVME SSD to PCI Express 3.0 Host Controller Expansion Card This M.2 NVME SSD is the right key for the above adapter. The key is just the notched pattern for the NVME drive. (without getting too technical about it). You can put the drive + adapter into any PC that has a PCI-e slot. BOOTING from the NVME Drive may or may not be supported by your motherboard. Your operating system has to be 84-bit and supports UEFI; Windows 7*, 8*, 8.1* or Windows® 10. (Check your motherboard information about UEFI and NVME) If all this sounds technically confusing you can do this: 1) boot off a regular 2.5 inch SSD drive (have your Operating system on it). 2) install the PCIe adapter + M.2 NVME drive into your PCI-e (x4){version 3.x} slot (check your motherboard specs) 3) make the M.2 a secondary drive like D: or E: or F: (all you have to do is format it, windows will give it the drive letter) 4) install any heavy loading programs on the M.2 I have this above outline configuration. Heavy programs or data goes to my M.2 Drives. You can even get two of these and make the M.2s into a RAID 0 stripped drive for double the speed. My advice is to format the M.2 as ReFS.ReFS protects against data corruption. (see attached image) (SKIP this section if you are not interested in ReFS formatting) Checking if TRIM is set for your ReFS formatted drive: 1) click on start or type in the windows 8/10 search box CMD 2) once you see CMD right click on the black icon and select Run as Administrator 3) type in the black window (Command Prompt) that just opened: a) fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify 1) NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (says that TRIM is active for NTFS) 2) ReFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0 ((says that TRIM is active for ReFS) 3) if you get = is not currently set for either NTFS or ReFS You can enable it with the following command: a) fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify ReFS 0 (this will set TRIM for ReFS) b) fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify NTFS 0 (this will set TRIM for ReFS) Silicon Power M.2 NVME Drive: Speeds: (Crystal Disk Mark) {See attached image} (NTFS formatted) - READ and WRITE speeds: 2,000 MB/s (ReFS formatted) - READ speeds: 2,000 MB/s - WRITE speed: 634 MB/S (due to error/checksum checking) Write speeds are slower on ReFS due to error/checksum checking. 634MB/s is still SSD fast. ALL NVME drives are subject to thermal throttling which means once the M.2/NVME drive reaches a certain temperature the onboard chips will throttle down the speed/transfer to save the chips from overheating. Larger, longer transfers will trip the thermal throttling so just be aware it isnt the manufacturers fault but the nature of the NVME design overall (across all manufacturers) My systems have SP SSD drives installed. I do large data transfers almost daily. SP drives keep pace with Samsung on speeds. Reliability cant be gauged on a short-term basis. Most of my drives are a year or younger in age. I do suggest trying either this M.2 drive or one of SPs other SSD drives. If you have an older system that doesnt have PCI-e (3.0) or greater to go with a regular 2.5 SSD drive. You really wont notice the difference. If all this sounds overwhelming find a geeky friend to help you out. I hope this information helps someone out. I always try to revise my reviews as needed.

Samsung is no longer the only game in town... Or maybe they are. This thing probably uses Samsung chips. In any event, I dropped this in and cloned my 512GB Samsung 860 Pro over to it using Macrium Reflect. I extended the partition to use the whole 2TB. Then removed the Samsung and rebooted. It was like I never messed with it, except I now have 2TB of space instead of 1/4 of that. Beautiful. Being able to have and run everything from one main drive, and backup literally that one and only main drive has simplified things. And, reducing complexity in storage and backup is necessarily an increase in data security. The less there is to go wrong, the less that will go wrong. I am very happy with this.

Okay ... So I am changing my review of the item to four stars ... and Ill explain why. So I my initial post was about how this particular SSD had a series of issues when I installed it in my laptop. Especially sticking when the machine has to reboot. However ... I didnt realise that the laptop a Dell Inspiron 14 5485 ... had a MAJOR bios update ... and when that was done (having to use the original drive on the laptop), then this new drive began to work. Its been two days and so far all is well. So Id recommend it ... just be weary when installing ... check to make sure your machine bios is up to date.

Getting advertised speeds after configuring bios and expansion card setup correctly. Used this on an Asus B550f gaming, non-wifi mobo inside a riitop m.2 expansion adapter. Only got 826MB/s R/W.. I had a wifi card in my bottom x1 slot, turns out on that mobo if you populate any of the x1 slots the x16_2 slot goes down x1 speeds. After I removed that WiFi card and forced gen3 on x16_2 I was off to the races. Well see how long it lasts!

**Notice: this is an NVMe (PCIe) drive, NOT a SATA drive** I purchased this drive, along with a compatible USB adapter, to upgrade my laptop. With the adapter, the drive worked just fine. It did seem to produce quite a bit of heat, even when idle, but apparently that is common for M.2 drives. However, it was not until I had properly installed the drive in my laptop that I realized it was not the right format for my system.

So I purchased this NVMe SSD back in October with the original plan of upgrading my Acer Nitro 5s stock Intel NVMe SSD. Well, at the time work was pretty hectic and didnt have the time for a clean install. I prefer clean installs when possible just to get the absolute most out of an upgrade like this. Now that Ive gotten home from assignment and things have cooled off I decided to finally dig in. Backed up bookmarks, passwords and files. Ready to rock. I had no idea this thing would be so much faster and just really wanted the space increase from 256 to 512. The pictures tell the tale. 1500 to 3200MB/s Read & 450 to 2200 Write! Thats 2x the Read speed and 4x the writes for 59 dollars! Wow! SSD & Ram prices are supposed to go up this year so upgrade while you can guys! Boot & shutdown times were noticeably improved. Take a look at the Random 4K speeds. Effectively 4x faster than before. Programs though opened fast before seem to open even faster now. Honestly, Im very impressed by the upgrade. Heat is def something to be aware of as the increase in tempis noticeable. In my Acer I can clearly feel it heating up the bottom of the machine more than the old unit did. Dont worry about reliability as NVMe drives thrive in heat and this isnt something to be worried about. Temps only spike under heavy or sustained work loads but quickly drop to around 29c while idle or during light loads. So again, its not defective just a byproduct of NVMe drives. Ive got WD, Crucial, PNY NVMes in various other systems and they all run hot. So again dont worry about it. So overall... Im happy with this upgrade and look forward to putting this thing to work.

This product is incredible and absolutely worth the money. I was initially skeptical on the possible quality issues this product may contain considering its cheap price, but after installing it, I must say I am amazed at its performance. I purchased this to upgrade the stock 128GB storage in my early 2015 MacBook Air, 11.6” i5. I had to purchase a cheap 5 dollar adapter(which is easily found right here on amazon) to allow me to install any standard NVME into Apple’s proprietary storage slot. After the install, I booted from my macOS installer usb and formatted the new disk with disk utility. Then, I installed Catalina fresh and restored my data with Time Machine. After getting all my data transferred, I ran Black Magic Speed Test. The results were staggering compared to the stock storage. With stock storage, I got a write speed of 154.6 MB/s and a read speed of 563.4 MB/s. With the A80, I got a write speed of 1056.2 MB/s and a read speed of 1324.8 MB/s. That’s nearly a 1000% increase(not a typo) in write speed and nearly 300% increase in read speed. The difference is incredibly noticeable and my MacBook flies. I HIGHLY recommend this for any use, whether it’s for a MacBook upgrade or a Windows desktop or notebook. I will be purchasing a second one of these to install in my main PC rig to replace an old SSD. If you’re in the market for a 1TB NVME, look nowhere else! This is the one to buy.

This is a good 1TB NVMe SSD. It has, of course, 1TB space and reads really fast, however, the write speeds vary from very fast to rather slow, depending on the test/bench marks. It is cheaper than the Samsung 970 EVO or WD Black NVMe SSD, but,..both of those perform better consistently at their rated read/write speeds. So, for about $20.00 more, Id go with the Samsung or WD Black for overall, consistent performance. Sorry Silicon Power. I got 2 of these on sale, (a really great deal) for my sons new laptop that came with a POS 128 GB, slug NVMe SSD, which btw, had 60 GB reserved for OS and bloatware. (REALLY..1/2 of the space was reserved and the partition was inaccessible for sizing. Sorry..off topic) So it was a great deal and they do function very well, just not consistently at the optimum rated write speed. I havent noticed any real lag or slowdowns due to this though, not yet, so I cant register a legitimate complaint about them. Overall, Im happy with the purchase and function/performance thus far.

Put it an external case-- able to format it & install a couple games on it. It gets very hot & loses connection to W10. All drivers are up to date & cables secure. I have a different brand case & smaller SSD that work fine.