Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsRequires Special Software To Clone Windows To Drive
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2018
You need to use software for Migrating Windows to different hardware if you want to put an existing copy of Windows on this drive -- it's apparently that way with all NVMe drives, and why Samsung provides its customers with free software for that purpose. WD does not, only offering a limited version of an Acronus app that's a few years old. You can use regular cloning software, or restore an image backup to the new drive, and it simply will not, ever, boot.
You can install a new, fresh copy of Windows, though I had to disconnect all SATA drives before that would work. I took 2 1/2 stars off because neither WD or anyone else tells you this, and 1/2 star because WD is too cheap to provide the needed software. I had the necessary software, Paragon Hard Disk Mgr. 16 Advanced, but since I wasn't migrating to a new PC, just swapping in a new drive, it wasn't until I spotted a chance forum post that the idea of migrating the OS occurred to me. I've done this literally dozens of times with conventional hard drives & SSDs and NEVER had to do more than clone the drive & edit the boot menu.
Other important notes...
Windows 10 includes a driver for NVMe drives, but you have to add one to win7. Windows 10 NVMe drivers are suboptimal -- Samsung provides drivers [again WD is too cheap to bother] , or if you're using Intel hardware, they have a good driver that works. If you're using AMD you're out of luck. Be prepared to mount the NVMe drive with a *Tiny* screw about the size of those used in eyeglasses, and Make Sure you have the special screw 1st -- I've read of PCs & motherboards coming without, & this WD drive does not include one. With some PCs & motherboards adding a drive to a M2 socket will turn something else off, e.g. taking some of the PCIe lanes from the graphics card or disabling some SATA ports, so research 1st, though info is scarce. Make sure that you have adequate cooling inside the PC/laptop -- some M2 drives come with heatsinks [this drive does not], and some motherboards come with M2 heatsinks [mine does], because NVMe drives can get Very hot... you can find reports on-line of people having problems with this. Finally, after all is said and done, while this drive is incredibly fast, you may not notice any difference compared to Windows on a normal, 2.5" SSD. A conventional hard drive is a bottleneck slowing things down when Windows starts, but a regular SSD overcomes that, and since the bottleneck is now stuff like the CPU & Windows itself, any extra speed doesn't really do much.
