Intel SSD 660p Series (512GB M.2 80mm Internal PCIe 3.0 X4 3D2 QLC)(978348)

My older Asrock Z97 Extreme 4 would only allow this NVMe M/2 SSD to operate at about half of it's rated speed. Still much faster than a regular SATA drive, and tons faster than spinning platter hardware.By using an adapter, it runs at full stated speeds, and that makes me one Happy Camper.

It installed easily. I installed windows on it to increase performance. I have never seen Windows 10 pro run this fast before. I truly recommend this configuration. I had to change the system configuration from the RAID config to install it on my HP ENVY i7. Well worth it though.

Ordered this particular SSD as it's what's in my laptop to run a RAID setup. Works excellently. Easy to install and absolutely no issues!

This SSD is priced not much lower than much, much faster SSDs so I don't understand its appeal. Perhaps it's the 5 year warranty? Who knows? In any case, I tested it in three different SSD external enclosures & with five different USB C cables & the pictured speeds was the best I was able to get out of it. But that may be due to port speed limitations. I tested on a laptop that came out in 2016 & I can't find the exact specs for the ports. If USB C 3.1 ver 1 (or generation 1) at 5 Gb/s (Gigabit NOT Byte) then the theoretical port transfer speed limit is ~625 MB/s (MegaByte) & what with overhead, that would explain why the speeds have topped where they have. The laptop has an internal SSD that I bought used on an auction site that gets just slightly better speeds but still tops out below 625 MB/s as further confirmation of port speed limits.But looking at the second picture taken during the relatively short speed test, the high temp shown is for the controller (other temps are for the actual flash memory). I'm not sure that this SSD would last very long in a laptop. The temps indicated were taken while the SSD was installed in a Inateck FE2025 drive enclosure without the cover on it. While the flash memory temps are well within the suggested maximum of 70*C/158*F, the controller temp is much higher than the controller temp on a Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD I tested in the same way. The 860 controller temp topped out at ~159*F. Admittedly a slower SSD so perhaps that accounts for the difference? But for comparison, the same speed test on the laptop's internal used 256 GB SSD generated a maximum temp of ~113*F while monitoring temps real time using HWiNFO64. Yes, that temp is only for the flash memory but it's still lower than the second highest temp of 116.3*F shown in the pic, which is for the flash memory nearest the controller.Having read enough reviews of SSDs failing due to overheating I don't know that I'd trust this one in a laptop.

My Lenovo Legion laptop came with a 1TB HDD. Incredibly slow, it took 10+ minutes to get the computer “warmed” up and running. I popped in this bad boy SSD, easily migrated my data, and bam the computer now loads up almost instantaneously. Loads times are no longer something I have to even think about. Absolutely worth every penny, I almost cried from the joy and disbelief the moment my laptop was able to turn on and launch a level of Doom 2016 in under 2 minutes.

While until me not be known for their SSDs/NVMes, they are more or less the champions when it comes to chip fabrication. You know you can trust their quality, even if you don't like Intel products.When we purchase these 660p 512GB sticks, we were honestly surprised to find they were the same price as your more "generic" suppliers like Power Silicone (which we also like) and Team Group. In fact, it was within pre-owned pricing found on eBay.When we purchase NVMes to add to a system it's often to clone a client's older SATA hard drive or a SSD. First, the 660p seems to "clone faster" on our test bench then other brands. Second, the 660p seems to perform faster than it's contemporaries, although we've not done any conclusive testing to verify.And the third attribute to note is the 660p utilizes Intel drivers that are not supported by other NVMes. This may be part of the performance optimization observed once installed, being it's more prevalent on motherboards with Intel chipsets supporting the MVMe M.2. We expect such gains on Intel's Optane models which are in the same class, but only supported by Intel Gen 8 processors and up.We're truly surprised that you don't see more Intel NVMe sticks in the wild.