Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM)

Top positive review

Easy to clone and install

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2019

I have an older ASUS laptop that was given to me by someone who purchased a new HP. This unit had only 4GB RAM and a 500GB spinning-hard-drive. So I upgraded RAM to 8GB and bought this Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD to replace the old spinning-drive.

This SSD arrived and I needed to buy a $7 USB-to-SATA III cable here on Amazon so I could clone the old hard drive to it. There is a lot of chatter on here about people wondering about the best ways to clone existing drives onto these SSD devices. In my case, I decided the simplest thing to do was to use something I could boot from a USB, so it wouldn't matter what operating system was on the old drive I could clone anything.

So I downloaded Tuxboot and Clonezilla and ran it to install onto a USB. Super-simple process and I was ready to roll. I then hooked up the SATA end of the cable to the SSD and the other to an open USB port on the laptop, stuck the bootable USB I had just made into another and turned on power. Booted right up to Clonezilla, hit enter through every default, ensured it was using the 500GB spinning-drive for its source and the new 500GB SSD for the target, and within about a minute it was off and running. You are presented with a lot of options. I chose the simplest, device-to-device rather than doing the source-to-image, then image-to-target. Process took around 2.5 hours and then I shut down, removed the old drive from its caddy and replaced it with the SSD, hit the power switch and the system immediately booted right up to where I had left off before I cloned it!

There are a lot of ways you can clone existing drives to these SSD's. You might even want to just fresh-install your system onto one of these SSD's and that's fine. I didn't want to take the time to do that. But for me, using that $7 cable I bought here on Amazon, with the Samsung EVO 860 SSD I bought here on Amazon, and free Clonezilla install-to-USB I was able to effortlessly clone the old drive to the SSD and boot right up with it without any issues whatsoever. I had zero issues.

A few benefits from having gone through this:
1. I now know how to clone a laptop drive to an external drive
2. No more motor to spin a drive, so no more extra draw on the laptop's battery to keep one running
3. No more heat from a drive motor that's constantly running
4. Excellent performance and speed with this Samsung

To benchmark it for you, the laptop originally took just over two minutes to boot up. After upgrading its memory from 4GB to 8GB boot time dropped a bit, to 1.5 minutes. But after replacing the hard-drive with this SSD boot time is now 30-32 seconds, from hitting the power-switch to login. And everything else on the system is much, much faster without the extra seek times and slowness of that old spinning drive.

Time will tell but so far this Samsung is functioning great, was easy to clone to, Clonezilla recognized it right away (as did Tuxboot), and it booted in my system the first time after the cloning was done. And this thing is just super-fast. Plus it's a Samsung EVO. From all I've heard and read, these are pretty reliable devices with a reliability of something like 1.5 MILLION hours. That's 62,500 days or about 171 years! Try getting that kind of reliability from a spinning hard-drive!

Bottom line is these are known to be great devices. There are duds out there but by-and-large it's hard to beat a Samsung EVO device for its price-point, reliability, and performance. That's why I spent the extra $$ rather than going to a cheaper, edge-brand type SSD. I have both old and new equipment and my older stuff recognized and worked with it just fine and so far it's a screamer. I highly recommend.

6 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Mark_M

Great Hardware - HORRIBLE Documentation & SUPPORT.

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2018

OK, The Samsung SSD itself is Blazing fast, however, that is only part of The Experience. The small box arrived with the SSD and a tiny insert stating 'Go to the website for Doc and Utilities' (in 9 languages). I went there (the first of two provided links did NOT take me to the appropriate page, the 2nd one did. (FWIW I'm an IT guy, and know well, how important documentation and instructions are). I downloaded the 2 software packages and associated Doc PDFs.

I read both Doc PDFs, and they are Woefully Inadequate. "Start SW, Clone, Reboot". OK, a Monkey could have written that. I have a LOT of experience with hardware, software and diagnostics... Much more should have been provided, and I discovered later, via their live support site, is Intentionally excluded. I installed the Migration SW and started it. It immediately said it was down leveled, and should be updated. OK, i just downloaded it 2 minutes prior, but probably got the latest solid build, and first run required "latest fixes". I said update, and it began to update, no indication anything was happening, no progress bar, no hint it wasn't hung up. 4 minutes later, it said "Complete" and restarted.

For the uninitiated, manipulating your OS boot drive is fairly complex, with Many nuances. For example, in my Windows 10 world, there are recovery partitions on the drive, that are required if you ever want / need to restore back to factory state, in case of a major fail. In my case, my source hard drive also had 2 additional primary partitions with important data, software and projects I support and work on. In other words, There is often MUCH more on a source drive, that the boot partition.

I restarted the Migration SW (joke) verified the Boot partition was selected, and that the SRC & TGT drives were correct, crossed my fingers and clicked 'clone'. Mind you there is ZERO DOC as to how to connect the SSD (TGT) other than a suggestion to use an external USB enclosure... a gigantic over site, that should have been thoroughly explained (in depth). 40 minutes later, it said 'Clone complete, Install your new drive'.

Again, if you have the most basic HD config, and don't care about losing all recovery ability, this may seem fine. Most people migrating to SSD likely are slightly more informed, and should have concerns. I knew what awaited, scoured the Samsung FAQs (A JOKE), and noted the complete lack of any meaningful documentation. OK, time to talk to a 'tech' .. I call in, queue up and wait, and finally a genius answers. I politely ask a few basic questions, and am told "That's not our problem". I grit my teeth, explain that I need access to the former D and E data partitions, and am distressed about losing my recovery options, and am not willing to wipe out my functioning Boot partition on the source drive (should anything malfunction). Again, I'm told "That's not our problem". Windows doesn't like to have 2 boot drives attached at power on. There are, and I am aware of, the significant effort to move my 2TB of data to another drive, from the original, then boot from the SSD. I know how to modify BIOS to select the SSD iteration of the boot, I cannot (easily) however, recovery the "RECOVERY" partition. There are other issues, but suffice it to say the implementation is GARBAGE!

Pretend for a moment, that some new technology that you implement has a problem, maybe a big one. Do you want to throw all your recovery options away, and undertake ( If you know how ) the arduous task of manually migrating all your data, or wiping out your backout options? I would suggest not. Anyhow, with the current software, documentation, and (DIS)service structure in place, that is a very real probability for many new users.

So, for my review as of now...

SSD Hardware - Smoking fast
Documentation - GARBAGE
Support - Very Poor
Recovery Probability - Low
Out Of Box Experience - { Depends on user - 8>) }
Technical Complexity - In The Most Basic situation, minimal, if you Use your systems, You better know what you're doing.

Giving this product 3 stars, is based on overall impression. The hardware is likely great, If you don't know what you're doing, you had better seek skilled help, and make sure you understand your end state.

Good Luck!

5 people found this helpful

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From the United States

John II

Easy to clone and install

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2019

Capacity: 500GBVerified Purchase

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Terry L. Ferko

Good option for replacing Hard drive

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2024

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

You will need a SATA cable a mounting adapter to hold the SSD in place. Fairly easy to do. Id suggest anyone interested should get some YouTube tutorial they cover everything quite well. All that aside it has worked well and does it quietly now.

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CWB

My Third Samsung SSD

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2019

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Over the past few years I've purchased three Samsung SSDs, and have been totally satisfied; I don't game or do other uber-heavy disk I/O. My first Samsung 256GB SSD came with a USB 3.0 to 2.5” SATA III cable and a CD for Samsung Magician, the last two SSDs (500GB and 1TB) have not provided a cable or Samsung Magician & Migration software CD; no CD is not a big deal, these can be downloaded from Samsung and you always get the latest version. The SATA-USB cable is VERY handy when doing a clean installation. See below...

MY THOUGHTS:

The "Frequently Bought Together" suggestion by Amazon shows an 18" SATA to SATA & Mounting Bracket for internal installation in a PC case, NOT for a laptop. I strongly suggest you get a SATA III-USB 3.0 cable just in case you don't have one. Very handy and inexpensive. Also, in a laptop you can reuse the existing mounting bracket.

I save my old disks in cases like: KSB 2.5 Inches SSD Hard Disk Drive Protection Storage Box Case For Solid State Disk, Pack of 6 Assorted Colors (Plastic), you can also find 3.5" cases if you are storing larger drives. These cases are cheap and very handy. Don't just throw disks away, they contain personal data and should be destroyed using disk cleaning software like BleachBit - a software Hillary Clinton used - or with hammer, ditto Hillary again, that are no longer needed. If you shred paper with personal info, this is shredding for digital data; just "deleting" isn't good enough as data remains on the disk until the computer needs the space.

When upgrading a Windows operating system, or "restoring", I prefer a clean installation on a new disk for several reasons:

1) SATA III to USB 3.0 Cable: I like the ability to externally attach the 500GB drive if I want to copy something I may have missed during the backup. Many people may not be aware about the cable if they do a clean install on a new disk and want to be able to easily pull files off the old disk. If you are doing a migration on a laptop from your existing disk to the new disk, the SATA III to USB 3.0 cable will be needed. Also, Samsung has migration software you'll need to download that use to come on the CD w/Magician.

2) New, fresh disk!

3) I can preserve my original disk to easily transfer my "stuff" at any time.

4) Disks are really inexpensive and performance keeps getting better with each new model. I started in computing after college with Digital Equipment Corp that had 67MB [yeah, MBs] disks the size of a Maytag washing machine external to the computer that had 4MB of RAM on a VAX/VMS 11/780 back in 1983, learned Assembly language on a PDP-8 that had paper tape memory and you toggled the code in with switches - Wiki it - and used punch cards in college on an IBM mainframe.

5) Rather than upgrade from Windows 7 to 10, I did a "special" backup (I like GoodSync) of my Windows 7 disk to my WDC SAN I use for backups, removed the 500GB SSD and popped in the new 1TB SSD and built Windows 10. Then I customize and move my stuff on and install needed software.

Well, this is what I do. Hope this helps others who may not be tech-savvy.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Wainright

Good Capacity, Good Performance

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2024

Capacity: 500GBVerified Purchase

Used as a drive in a silent Mini-ITX build. Neatly fits inside a small low profile Mini-ITX chassis, makes no noise and adds very little heat. Slim so it minimally impacts airflow in the chassis. Loved it so much I bought another one for a second machine when the SMART monitoring started indicating imminent failure. Both have been operating for over a year 24/7 with no issues. Would definitely buy again for legacy machines that don't support m.2

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Dogboy

Wowowowowowow!

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2019

Capacity: 500GBVerified Purchase

I feel like I have a new laptop.

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 431 with a Core i7-3632QM CPU @ 2.20GH processor and 8GB of RAM, running Windows 7 Professional, which were pretty good specs when I bought it five years ago. It has been a decent, reliable performer, but continuous software bloat has resulted in increasingly slow performance. I run maintenance utilities regularly and have a minimum of the normal “junk” that slows a PC down, but you can only make an old horse run so fast.

Or so I thought.

I downloaded a copy of HDTune to evaluate the hard drive, and was chagrined to learn how slow it was compared to state-of-the-art drives even though it was performing at its rated ability. It was time to try one of these new-fangled SSD’s, especially considering how inexpensive they’ve become.

Whoa! My start-up time has decreased from an average of 3:20 to a mere 0:45, a decrease of 75 percent! Everything is much snappier and responsive, and programs load RIGHT NOW. What a change!

The Windows Experience Index went from 5.9 (the lowest rating being the Primary Hard Disk score) to 6.5 (driven by the graphics, which is not a priority in a business laptop). The Primary Hard Drive score is now 7.9, which is the highest it can go.

I didn’t realize when I ordered this that I would also need a USB adapter for a SATA drive to make the transfer, so that was a second Amazon order before I could start. I then downloaded the free transfer software from Samsung and it took about 45 minutes to transfer 360 GB of data from my HDD to the Samsung SSD. Swapping the drives was a piece of cake, although that would depend on what laptop you have. For my ThinkPad, it was a matter of removing three screws to remove the bottom cover, then four screws to remove the bracket holding the old hard drive, and then four more screws to take the HDD out of the bracket to make room for the SSD. Reassembly and the insertion of the eleven little screws took just a few minutes.

I restarted my ThinkPad and it was as though nothing had changed…except it was FAST! When I ran MS Word 2010 it noticed a change in hardware and wanted to re-register with Microsoft automatically, so I let it do that, but that was the end of the install process.

I cannot recommend this upgrade more highly to anyone who has a worthwhile laptop with the weakest link being the speed of the HDD.

---------------------
Update 7/27/19: It has now been almost four months since I upgraded my ThinkPad with this product and my opinion has only gotten better. The replacement of the mechanical spinning HD with this SSD has increased my effective battery life tremendously. The SSD uses less energy, of course, but even more significant is that my PC's new ability to awake from sleep mode almost immediately allows me to set a much shorter time delay between inactivity and forced sleep mode. I'm also much less reluctant to deliberately put the ThinkPad into sleep mode because now it will start up again so quickly when I need it. If I'm sitting in a one hour meeting, my PC can easily go to sleep several times during that interval (and I don't mean only that the screen goes dark), and I get it to crank back up and log me in in just a few seconds with just a couple of slaps at the space bar. Awesome!!

When plugged in, I used to leave my PC running all the time during the day even when it was unattended, because the startup time was so interminable and I didn't want to go through it more than once daily. Now I've gotten into the habit of putting it into sleep mode whenever I plan to be away from it for a while, just to save energy. If I plan to be gone for several hours, I'll even do a full shut down because, again, it's so easy to get it up and running again when I return.

I also need to add that I upgraded to Windows 10 (which is still free, even though Microsoft keeps it a secret), which helps startup time even more. My old ThinkPad really zips along better than when it was new. Thanks, Samsung!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

PaulN

Good Samsung Quality

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2019

Capacity: 500GBVerified Purchase

I bought this SSD (512 GB Samsung 860 EVO) to replace an older Samsung SSD that is over 10 years old. The old SSD was the Windows boot drive, so is the new one

This review details the cloning and installation process. Essentially, you are going to clone / migrate the data (create an exact copy) of the old drive and apply it to the new drive.
You may want to invest in an external SSD enclosure to help in the cloning process, I bought and used UGREEN External Hard Drive Enclosure Adapter USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Disk Case Housing for 2.5 Inch 9.5mm, from Amazon as well. It's about $10 but it will make your life easier AND once you're done, you can use it to house and use the old SSD (or any similar new or old SSD, as an external drive. So it's really useful!

You may have read/ heard about problems some were having using the data migration that Samsung provides (Data Migration software available from Samsung website). I haven't tested or used this software so I will not comment on it. But I did download it and installed it (installation was problematic and got hung many times....upon googling, I discovered one must disable Windows Anti Ransomware protection (under Windows Security....) strange, but I disabled it and the installation worked. Don't forget to re e-enable the Ransomware protection when done!!

So, assuming you have the SSD data enclosure, place the SSD inside it, connect to the PC using the included USB cable and you're ready to clone / migrate the data.

Cloning Process: I used Macrium Reflect. You should really use the latest version, and it's not free anymore, but they offer a 30 day trial which will do the job. PS: The older versions seemed to have an issue with a fully updated Windows 10.

Once Macrium Reflect is up and running, the FIRST THING you should do is create a Recovery Disk (find it under Other Tasks in the menu, and it's called Create Rescue Media). It's easy, just follow the prompts. Keep it aside just in a safe place, in case (this is useful as a Windows Recovery disk, which every one should have).

There are videos on Youtube that show you what to do exactly when using Macrium Reflect, do watch them, they are easy and useful. But especially if your old drive / SSD and the new SSD are not the same size! Look for: How to Clone Windows from a Hard Disk to an M.2 SSD by a guy called ACCESS RANDOM.

If the (old and new) drives are of different sizes you MUST watch: How to clone a disk drive using Macrium Reflect and resize the partition by a guy called Alex Kang. It has one step in that is essential to handling the different sizes issue.
Both videos are excellent and walk you through each step.

Once the cloning is done, remove your old SSD and install the new SSD in your PC (or laptop) using the same cables. Reboot the PC and test the drive for a few days. If you're completely happy and the system is stable, feel free to either place the old SSD in the external enclosure and use it any way you want or use the old SSD in your PC / laptop as extra storage (after erasing the old data).

Speed: Any SSD is much faster than the fastest regular (spinning) hard drive. This SSD is fast but not the fastest on the market but it's perfect for booting Windows aka, as a boot drive, (Windows boots up in 10-20 seconds, depending on your PC). With this SSD I am surfing the web in less than 20 seconds from powering up. There are faster SSDs but gaining 2-3 seconds in Windows boot time is not really important to me.

In closing, one final reminder: Do watch those videos!!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

PhotoGraphics

You need to know this

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2020

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

With almost 30,000 reviews as I write this it would seem there’s not much to add. I have to admit I didn’t read every one of them before I made my decision but it still took me six months to decide to finally do it. I’m happy I did. I won’t throw a lot of specs into this because they are worthless when other people you don’t know talk about how their system performs. There is only one way to know how this drive will perform in your system and that is to buy it and try it and return it if you don’t like it. That’s the most important thing I can say about this.
Besides that there are a couple of things that are more universal that you should know.

1. Unless you specifically choose the option to purchase an installation kit the only thing you get is the drive in a vacuum formed plastic tray. It’s not even wrapped in any antistatic material. I was surprised that there wasn’t even a bag of tiny screws.

2. There is no driver or software included but you can download them. The software only works with a specific list of Samsung drives. It includes some valuable tools but otherwise it is pretty basic and easy enough to understand that you don’t have to be a computer expert to figure it out.

3. This is a SATA drive. While it ranks high on performance compared to other similar drives it is absolutely puny in my HP Z2 G4 workstaton compared to the Samsung NVMe boot drive that came preinstalled. This is according to their own Magic software.

4. For me the task of putting it in to my computer took all of five minutes from popping the top off to plugging it back in. The software comes with a few performance enhancements which I usually ignore but in this case I just opted to let them go for it. I have experienced no negatives by doing so. I do a lot of intensive graphic, photo and video work on my workstation and this drive is one of the best performing I’ve owned.

5. The relatively well written instruction manual shows important connectors that are NOT included, although they indicate that they are necessary to use the product. You have to find (good luck) and buy those connectors yourself.

6. While not a factor in rating this item there is something very typical with those who sell here. You can look at a product for months and the price doesn't budge a penny but the day after you actually place your order they suddenly drop the price permanently. Most stores would offer price protection but no, not this seller.

Again, my best advice is to just do it and see if you like it. It works fine in my system so I would recommend it if it's what you're looking for.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Razan

Superfast and very happy

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2024

Capacity: 500GBVerified Purchase

Very happy with the quality, I had to go with a name brand for a hard drive. some things I cannot go cheap on and expect same results as name brands. SDD is one of them. So far very happy. Benn over 2 years so far and expect few more years until I replace the laptop. Highly recommend.

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