Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsMost Excellent! - Samsung 860 EVO 1TB & 250GB mSATA Internal SSDs
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2019
Recently I decided to upgrade the mSATA drives in my circa 2011-1013 Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook computers. I have three of these units. A 1st generation Core i3 11.6" NP900X1A-A01US, a 3rd generation Core i7 13.3" NP900X3C-A04US, and a 3rd generation Core i5 13.3" NP900X3D-A01US. In the same order they came provisioned with 64GB, 256GB, & 128GB mSATA drives. I chose the 250GB Samsung 860 EVO as the replacement for the first & third of the lot as both needed a bit more storage capacity, particularly the 11.6" with its diminutive 64GB drive. I selected the 1TB model as the replacement for the Core i7 NP700X3C.
Installing the new drives was fast & easy. For cloning I fitted the new drives in Zheino USB 3.0-to-mSATA enclosures also purchased here on Amazon. No need to completely assemble the drive enclosure for this step. Just insert the drive into the PCB & connect the cable. Windows detects the new drive & you are all set with no special drivers or software required. Acronis True Image was used to partition & clone the new drives. As the original drives are relatively small this step took perhaps 10-15 minutes per computer. Next I removed the bottom panel of the computers, swapped out the mSATA drives, & buttoned everything back up, using the opportunity to blow out any accumulated dust & debris. The physical swapping of the drives required another 10-15 minutes per computer, including the clean out. Finally, I installed the original drives in the Zheino USB-to-mSATA enclosures for use as fast & portable storage. Upon reboot Windows fired up without incident, detecting the new drive hardware, & installed whatever drivers it required automatically. One more reboot & I was finished save for installing the optional "Samsung Magician" software that allows for setting drive preferences, running benchmarks, & keeping tabs on drive health & life status.
Though these computers came fitted with mSATA drives, they were older models & the performance of the new EVO 860 is a marked improvement. The performance gain was particularly notable on the 13.3" NP900X3D which was factory-equipped with a slow SanDisk UM100 SSD. It now cold boots in about 12 seconds & is almost as fast as the Core i7 model. CrystalDiskMark 6.x screenshots of the replacement drive performance is included in the photos. (Note that the 11.6" NP900X1A is limited to a 300GB/s SATA bus).
These models of the Samsung EVO 860 are the bare drive versions & include no software or cables for migrating your current drive contents. The 250GB model includes a 5 year/150TBW (terabytes written) warranty while the 1TB model comes with a 5 year/600TBW warranty. All three installations were fast & 100% trouble-free. I am loving the performance boost & security of new drives with a 5 year warranty.
