Intel 660P Series 512GB M.2 80mm SSD

To set the scene, my laptop has been frustrating me for a while because it was so slow to load up that I decided not to shut it down anymore. This caused more problems and I came across SSD upgrades and how they magically make everything better, sceptically I decided to check this out. My laptop does actually have an M2 slot inside too which I didn’t know initially. After some research I decided I wanted to replace my HDD with a SSD and see if the claims were true.For a while I scoured the internet looking for a good quality SSD at a competitive price and then I came across this one (Intel 660p). I was a bit anxious about buying it as it was much cheaper than the Samsung equivalent but was so glad that I did. It’s a brand I know and it works amazingly.I managed to ... MoreTo set the scene, my laptop has been frustrating me for a while because it was so slow to load up that I decided not to shut it down anymore. This caused more problems and I came across SSD upgrades and how they magically make everything better, sceptically I decided to check this out. My laptop does actually have an M2 slot inside too which I didn’t know initially. After some research I decided I wanted to replace my HDD with a SSD and see if the claims were true.For a while I scoured the internet looking for a good quality SSD at a competitive price and then I came across this one (Intel 660p). I was a bit anxious about buying it as it was much cheaper than the Samsung equivalent but was so glad that I did. It’s a brand I know and it works amazingly.I managed to clone my entire HDD to this SSD and now my laptop works much quicker. It loads from shut down in seconds compared to several minutes before. I’m not much of a gamer but I have some games which operate very well.If you’re looking to upgrade your laptop or PC then I would recommend intel 660p. The difference in performance is stark and the storage space is a bonus

A Week-In Review

Really, I can't find a flaw with this drive. However did find a flaw with the laptop upgrading it. If you have an Acer Predator Helios 500 AMD version, and want to populate the second slot with this drive, it will not boot. The original drive is a 256gb NVMe drive, 3200mb/s read and 3200mb/s writes (this info will be used later). I figured I could keep that faster drive in for boot and this for secondary fast gaming storage. BIOS didn't pick it up. Drive 0 was the 256gb one, drive 2 was my SATA one. So I swapped in this 2TB one in place of the 256gb one and moved it to the empty slot. It booted but didn't see the 256gb drive but did see the 2TB drive. So I just gave up trying and installed Windows fresh in this drive and will investigate the other slot later. The ... MoreReally, I can't find a flaw with this drive. However did find a flaw with the laptop upgrading it. If you have an Acer Predator Helios 500 AMD version, and want to populate the second slot with this drive, it will not boot. The original drive is a 256gb NVMe drive, 3200mb/s read and 3200mb/s writes (this info will be used later). I figured I could keep that faster drive in for boot and this for secondary fast gaming storage. BIOS didn't pick it up. Drive 0 was the 256gb one, drive 2 was my SATA one. So I swapped in this 2TB one in place of the 256gb one and moved it to the empty slot. It booted but didn't see the 256gb drive but did see the 2TB drive. So I just gave up trying and installed Windows fresh in this drive and will investigate the other slot later. The computer, feels just as responsive as the old drive with double the write and read speeds. I copied games from the SATA SSD to this drive, about 300gb worth to see if it throttled, and it didn't. My laptop has a big copper heat sink for this drive so I think that, and it'll easily keep up with the transfer speed of an older SATA SSD just fine. So if you got a PC or especially laptop that has multiple NVMe slots, check your compatibility if you plan to use this as a secondary drive. However its no slouch as a primary drive for a gaming PC. All in all, I'm happy with it!

Decent but be cautious

I used it in a Gigabyte z370 Gaming 5 motherboard M.2 slot 3 so I can leave all 6 SATA ports for other peripherals. During the stress tests, as I pushed CPU/DRAM clocks to the extremes, system crashed a few times. After one of the crashes, the system wouldn't boot into Windows and flagged "WHEA uncorrectable errors" indicating hardware errors. After careful investigations, ruled out of CPU, DRAM, and motherboard, discovered that the OS on the SSD got corrupted. Had to reload Windows to get the system working again. Used Intel SSD tools to check the SSD showing no sign of hardware problems. Not sure this kind of data corruption problems are supposed to happen, though. Thus, I'd recommend this product if you just used it in normal situations. If you are getting into ... MoreI used it in a Gigabyte z370 Gaming 5 motherboard M.2 slot 3 so I can leave all 6 SATA ports for other peripherals. During the stress tests, as I pushed CPU/DRAM clocks to the extremes, system crashed a few times. After one of the crashes, the system wouldn't boot into Windows and flagged "WHEA uncorrectable errors" indicating hardware errors. After careful investigations, ruled out of CPU, DRAM, and motherboard, discovered that the OS on the SSD got corrupted. Had to reload Windows to get the system working again. Used Intel SSD tools to check the SSD showing no sign of hardware problems. Not sure this kind of data corruption problems are supposed to happen, though. Thus, I'd recommend this product if you just used it in normal situations. If you are getting into experimental extreme operations, you need to be cautious and prepared. This is definitely not a professional grade SSD.

Excellent product but be aware of the limitations of QLC

Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D2 QLC SSD: Buy this if you want a reliable QLC SSD. Do *not* buy this if your machine has insufficient RAM and uses virtual memory, for temporary files for video rendering, or for temporary files for gaming -- you will burn out the SSD and be mad at Intel when it is not their fault. This Intel product has a tendency to *not* be DOA (please read the other reviews). There were no problems installing Windows 10 version 1809 onto this SSD using default disk allocation settings. Windows 10 was installed from a USB flash drive (but not from the USB flash drive included in the Windows box because that USB flash drive has a reputation for being unreliable). It was necessary to download a device driver so that the Windows ... MoreIntel 660p Series M.2 2280 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D2 QLC SSD: Buy this if you want a reliable QLC SSD. Do *not* buy this if your machine has insufficient RAM and uses virtual memory, for temporary files for video rendering, or for temporary files for gaming -- you will burn out the SSD and be mad at Intel when it is not their fault. This Intel product has a tendency to *not* be DOA (please read the other reviews). There were no problems installing Windows 10 version 1809 onto this SSD using default disk allocation settings. Windows 10 was installed from a USB flash drive (but not from the USB flash drive included in the Windows box because that USB flash drive has a reputation for being unreliable). It was necessary to download a device driver so that the Windows installer could recognize the Intel SSD but everything went smoothly after that. Installed on an ASRock B450M PRO4 AM4 Micro ATX motherboard with a Ryzen 2700 processor and 16GB of RAM, this SSD has been trouble-free for 6 months (100% health after 2106 hours per CrystalDiskInfo). On this motherboard, the NVMe M.2 socket is next to the CPU cooler, and the AMD stock cooler blows air across the motherboard where the SSD is located (SSD temperature 35C per CrystalDiskInfo). According to conventional wisdom, QLC is a good choice for "mostly read" applications such as a boot SSD, but QLC is *not* a good choice for write-intensive applications. As of this writing, the manufacturer's web site showed that the endurance rating of this 500GB device is 100 TBW (100 terabytes written).

Good NVME SSD

Using Intel Data Migration Software I was able to clone my old SATA SSD to this drive successfully. If cloning you may need to disconnect your old HD in order to boot from this drive. With my build (MSI z390 Gaming Pro Carbon + 9600k) it will fail to boot if only adjusting boot order in BIOS - it does not recognize this as a bootable drive. Once old SSD was disconnected I was able to successfully boot from this drive, but experienced trouble with nVidia drivers. I was unable to launch GeForce Experience or the nVidia Control Panel, the icon would appear in the system tray, but neither app could be opened. In addition to this, I was also not getting any display on my 2nd monitor. Ended up doing a clean driver install using DDU and have not had any trouble since. ... MoreUsing Intel Data Migration Software I was able to clone my old SATA SSD to this drive successfully. If cloning you may need to disconnect your old HD in order to boot from this drive. With my build (MSI z390 Gaming Pro Carbon + 9600k) it will fail to boot if only adjusting boot order in BIOS - it does not recognize this as a bootable drive. Once old SSD was disconnected I was able to successfully boot from this drive, but experienced trouble with nVidia drivers. I was unable to launch GeForce Experience or the nVidia Control Panel, the icon would appear in the system tray, but neither app could be opened. In addition to this, I was also not getting any display on my 2nd monitor. Ended up doing a clean driver install using DDU and have not had any trouble since. Overall a very good NVME SSD for the price, would definitely recommend.

NVME drive, good price. Install was easy

I purchased this NVME drive from a newegg special offer. It was in the SATA price ranges and much less than the current NVME prices. I think that NVME drives will be replacing SATA in the future and as production volumes increase, prices will drop. I had to find a screw for the m2 slot. it is very small. I am not sure where the average person would find one, they are not the standard sizes used to lock down regular computer drives. I was lucky to scavenge a screw off an old mother board that had an old wireless card. The specs show that the data transfer rates are significantly less than other competitor's NVME drives . The difference between the NVME data rates really is not a problem. On my system the Windows login prompt shows up immediately after the motherboard ... MoreI purchased this NVME drive from a newegg special offer. It was in the SATA price ranges and much less than the current NVME prices. I think that NVME drives will be replacing SATA in the future and as production volumes increase, prices will drop. I had to find a screw for the m2 slot. it is very small. I am not sure where the average person would find one, they are not the standard sizes used to lock down regular computer drives. I was lucky to scavenge a screw off an old mother board that had an old wireless card. The specs show that the data transfer rates are significantly less than other competitor's NVME drives . The difference between the NVME data rates really is not a problem. On my system the Windows login prompt shows up immediately after the motherboard diagnostic screen closes (I have the diagnostic screen turned on). My old SATA SSD drive performance was fast. However, from a usability standpoint the OLD SATA drive performance compares to a car versus a rocket. I had to login to the INTEL support website to download the cloning software. I think the Intel Data Migration tools is a front end interface to the Acronis software. I also downloaded INTEL's Solid-State Drive toolbox. I moved my 500 GB SSD drive to this 1TB NVME drive. The cloning software took about 5 minutes to setup. and about 30 unattended minutes to complete. I physically removed the OLD drive and rebooted the system. Everything worked perfectly

Nice drive, easy transition

I cloned my 128GB drive to my old 840 EVO pro (my PC has only 1 M.2 slot and I thought it would be Much faster to clone from SSD->SSD->SSD rather than SSD -> HDD -> SSD) the physically removed the 128GB SSD and installed this 1TB SSD. While booting from the old 940 Pro I realized the whole PC was noticeably slower to boot and after I booted into windows I also noticed everything was less snappier. No really, I've been doing PC's for LONG time it was slower. I did not realize just how much slower the 2.5 inch PCI SSD's were compared to the M.2 NvM's until I did this cloning thing. The clone from the NvME to the 2.5 inch SSD took about 25 minutes from start of cling to at the desktop on the newly cloned drive. Cloning from the 2.5 inch notebook back to the NvME was ... MoreI cloned my 128GB drive to my old 840 EVO pro (my PC has only 1 M.2 slot and I thought it would be Much faster to clone from SSD->SSD->SSD rather than SSD -> HDD -> SSD) the physically removed the 128GB SSD and installed this 1TB SSD. While booting from the old 940 Pro I realized the whole PC was noticeably slower to boot and after I booted into windows I also noticed everything was less snappier. No really, I've been doing PC's for LONG time it was slower. I did not realize just how much slower the 2.5 inch PCI SSD's were compared to the M.2 NvM's until I did this cloning thing. The clone from the NvME to the 2.5 inch SSD took about 25 minutes from start of cling to at the desktop on the newly cloned drive. Cloning from the 2.5 inch notebook back to the NvME was only about 15 minutes (it as actually less that 15 but I can't remember how much less 11?13? - so lets call it 15). I used Paragon Hard Drive Manager and I highly recommend this to anyone if it is within their means. Paid program. I was as simple as install, a few clicks on 30 minutes later I was signing onto windows on the cloned drive.

Not super fast, but the price is right.

If you're heavily into benchmarks, this is far from the fastest drive you can buy. But any SSD is a lot faster than spinning rust. The upgrade from a hard drive to any SSD, even a slow one, is gigantic. The improvement in feel from a mediocre-speed SSD like this one to a really fast unit is far less noticeable. It's quite common for games to be CPU-bound instead of I/O-bound, so no matter how fast your drive is, it doesn't load any faster. Unless a game has been specially written for high speed SSDs, this unit is likely to keep all but the highest-end CPUs saturated. And if you had a super-high-end CPU, you probably wouldn't be reading this review. This drive is likely to be very comfortable for almost any usage. Unless you have some specific knowledge that you can ... MoreIf you're heavily into benchmarks, this is far from the fastest drive you can buy. But any SSD is a lot faster than spinning rust. The upgrade from a hard drive to any SSD, even a slow one, is gigantic. The improvement in feel from a mediocre-speed SSD like this one to a really fast unit is far less noticeable. It's quite common for games to be CPU-bound instead of I/O-bound, so no matter how fast your drive is, it doesn't load any faster. Unless a game has been specially written for high speed SSDs, this unit is likely to keep all but the highest-end CPUs saturated. And if you had a super-high-end CPU, you probably wouldn't be reading this review. This drive is likely to be very comfortable for almost any usage. Unless you have some specific knowledge that you can definitely use a drive with a higher I/O rating, this one should be just fine.

awesome ssd for the price

If you've watched reviews/videos on these SSD's you'll notice almost all reviewers use the 256GB versions. The reason why these SSD's are so cheap (comparatively) is they use QLC. which is great for density, bad for speed. They over come this by having a portion of static SLC (must faster) that then writes (dumps) to the QLC from time to time. The problem is if you are transferring large amounts of data all at once the fast SLC becomes full then everything is writing straight to the slow QLC. So why is this a big deal? The 256 GB versions, that most video reviewers use, have a small SLC portion (I don't remember the exact size). The 1TB and 2TB versions of these drives have much larger static SLC portions and there for can write much larger amounts of data while ... MoreIf you've watched reviews/videos on these SSD's you'll notice almost all reviewers use the 256GB versions. The reason why these SSD's are so cheap (comparatively) is they use QLC. which is great for density, bad for speed. They over come this by having a portion of static SLC (must faster) that then writes (dumps) to the QLC from time to time. The problem is if you are transferring large amounts of data all at once the fast SLC becomes full then everything is writing straight to the slow QLC. So why is this a big deal? The 256 GB versions, that most video reviewers use, have a small SLC portion (I don't remember the exact size). The 1TB and 2TB versions of these drives have much larger static SLC portions and there for can write much larger amounts of data while still being very fast. My setup was to buy 2 of the 1TB Intel 660P drives and put them in a raid 0 configuration. I did this for two reasons - First - I've effectively doubled my static fast SLC so I can write much larger amounts of data without worry of filling up the SLC before it has time to dump the data to the slower QLC. Second - the convenience of having a single drive (I have other sata SSD drives I use for backup). My results: I was able to fully install windows very quickly without any noticeable slowdowns. Then to test how it handled large amounts of data at once I moved two large games (Anthem and Battlefield V) which is just over 90GBs of data. It was able to move all 90GB's without ever slowing down staying steady at over 900MBs transfer rate. I couldn't be happier with these drives, just know what you are getting, what the shortcomings are and if you can either limit those shortcomings or live with them.

only for casual users

if your'e only using this drive for mostly read purpose, basically this is the perfect NVME SSD for your wife or your gf who just wants their computer to load up fast and applications to load fast. If you're using this drive as a gaming partition, know that the first time you migrate all your game files over, which i'd imagine would be couple hundred gigs large, will be painfully slow after the initial 50~60GB or so. but you're mostly just playing games off of this drive and don't do much writing to it, it's perfectly fast. and if you're downloading games to this drive through internet connection that's fine too. since most internet tops out at 15~20 MB/s for average user, even gigabit tops out less than 100 MB/s in the real-world. basically this is for casual ... Moreif your'e only using this drive for mostly read purpose, basically this is the perfect NVME SSD for your wife or your gf who just wants their computer to load up fast and applications to load fast. If you're using this drive as a gaming partition, know that the first time you migrate all your game files over, which i'd imagine would be couple hundred gigs large, will be painfully slow after the initial 50~60GB or so. but you're mostly just playing games off of this drive and don't do much writing to it, it's perfectly fast. and if you're downloading games to this drive through internet connection that's fine too. since most internet tops out at 15~20 MB/s for average user, even gigabit tops out less than 100 MB/s in the real-world. basically this is for casual usage. but now that i've gotten a glimpse into the potential and speed of NVME, i am hooked. there's no going back. i am most likely either going to return this drive, or give this to my wife's laptop. i have another Corsair MP510 ordered on the way, and will likely order another 2TB Corsair to use as secondary. NVME really is powerful. the only reason you would get the 660P intel drive is as mentioned above, if it's for your gf, or wife, who just want their laptop to load and boost up fast, and rarely EVER write anything large at once. OR if you order the 2TB version of 660P and TREAT IT LIKE IT"S A 1.5TB drive, or manually set the over-provisioning for 500GB. that way the internal SLC will never fall below 50 GB at 75% capacity filled, or 200 GB at 25% capacity filled. to me i very often write large ISO and trasnferring them across partitiions, so i am mostly working with 50~70GB files, this is just not cutting it for me. at those environments, the speeds fall below my tried and true cricual MX500. to give you an example, i copied the Ghost Recon folder, which is 63 GB large, it took 6:50 to complete the task, the initial 20 GB was being copied at 1 GB/s throughput, but falls to less than 100 MB after. with the Crucial MX500, it took 5:30 throughout the entire consistant 450 MB/s throughput. this is done with the 1TB 660P 65~70% filled up, which is typical for average users. If you get a 2TB version, and reserve 500GB out of that as over-provisioning, even at its 1.5 TB space filled, you would still have 5GB of SLC cache to work with, but that's worst case scenario. if you have a 1.5TB capacity drive, you likely won't be working with it 100% filled all the time, so your SLC cache is like to be 100~200 GB. keep all this in mind. and decide if it's for you or not. obviously the 1TB version is $200. so even if you get it, and only use it as 1.5TB drive, it might be a competitive option compare to a speedy 1TB NVME like the Corsair or Samsung Evo, or HP 920. all of those other drives will have a much much MUCH higher raw writing speed after their SLC cache run out. if you have to decide what's for you. personally i am going with a speedy 1TB NVME. i do have to give Intel the props for pushing the QLC tech 660P drive forward into the market. because if it weren't for drives like the 660P or the Crucial P1, i would've never have given NVME a try at the first place. So although QLC NVME still leaves a lot to be desired, it did its job in thrusting the technology forward with its price/performance offer. it reminds me of when i first got into espresso machines. my very first was a cheapo $40 one that didn't make any true espresso by got me into the game. the subsequent machines i purchased each got better and better.