Question 1

Is the 3mm mounting screw included?

Accepted Answer

Negative. I just opened a new factory sealed package and the Intel people chose NOT to include the mounting screw. Check around; a proper fitting screw for these motherboards should not be to hard to find.

Question 2

If this is put into a PCIe 3.0 x2 slot will it dimish the performance? I want something that is low price anyway since it is in a slower m.2 slot but don't know if this having less lanes will slow the performance of the drive.

Accepted Answer

Yes it will operate at half the speed. 
While x2 is more than enough bandwidth for even a Samsung Evo it has more to do with the controller on the cards and how they divide up data across the available lanes. Data doesn't transfer along one lane until its saturated and than uses the next, it is done a little bit across all lanes at the same time. 
While this will still be faster than any SSD, no x4 card will hit max transfer speeds in a x2 slot. Look for an older card with a PCIe 3.0 2x controller. Or get this knowing you can use it in a new board when you eventually upgrade.

Question 3

will this SSD (Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D2 QLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEKNW512G8XT) work in my very old gateway GM5457E running win vista?  I keep an extra old fashioned platter HD and monthly clone it as a total "backup" for reliability and safety. i would hope a SSD would be much more reliable.

Accepted Answer

It will not work out of the box, you would need to install this m.2 SSD into an adapter of some kind. You could can buy and install SATA enclosures which convert this m.2 to SATA, or use a PCIe adapter. Search for an M.2 to SATA or an M.2 to PCIe solution here on Newegg and you will see some products that you will need. Make sure that if you buy an adapter to get one that supports an M key 4x 2280 m.2 drive.

Question 4

Does it come with data migration software?

Accepted Answer

Not in the box. You can download it from the intel website for free. When you open the software it scans the drives connected and if either of them is an intel branded drive it will let you migrate data either to or from it. 
It works really well but only works if one of the drives in the connection is intel so you can’t use the software for any other ssd/hdds

Question 5

Is this SSD compatible with Alienware 17 R3?

Accepted Answer

If you have one of the later models, it should work. However I've read that this laptop is picky about which drives it will accept and that you may also need to update you BIOS for support. It would be best to ask a Dell support representative this question, if you want a guarantee. As far as the form factor, it will certainly install fine, but whether or not it will work is entirely up to which laptop revision you have or which BIOS.

Question 6

SATA III or NVMe SSD?  (If NVMe it is not clearly stated as such, which allows confusion with SATA III in the same M.2 2280 form factor for many new users of this product.)

Accepted Answer

This is an NVMe SSD. Just not as fast as say the 970 evo from Samsung. Its still a great drive. The 1 tb runs about 1800 on the read and 1500 on the write.

Question 7

is this DRAM-less?

Accepted Answer

No, it DOES have DRAM.  256MB of DDR3 to be exact.  The others answering this are "confused."  Leaving DRAM off an SSD is a cost saving measure on cheap SSDs having TLC memory.  It cuts the performance a bit, but with TLC, the drives still perform okay.  This SSD uses garbage-dump QLC memory to save money.  Because of the bottom-of-the-barrel QLC memory, it's already half as fast as TLC based NVMe drives.  Leaving off the DRAM would really make it a slug of an NVMe drive.  Even with the DRAM on board, QLC drives like the 660p need to use huge portions of their memory to act as an SLC buffer to get reasonable performance.

Question 8

I have an M.2 2280 slot on my ASrock X370 Gaming K4 that only supports up to PCIe2 x2.  Is this SSD backward compatible with PCIe2 x2?

Accepted Answer

The spec for mobo says
___________
1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32Gb/s) (with Ryzen Series CPU) or Gen3 x2 (16Gb/s) (with A-Series APU)*
1 x M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen2 x2 (10Gb/s)*
___________
What this means is the speed will be different and lowered. Intel 660p will work just fine on both the m.2 slots speed will vary/lowered.

Question 9

Is this SSD compaible with Dell OptiPlex 7050 Micro? I cannot seem to get it to work. It doesn't properly detect the drive. Only shows it by the controller name "SM2263" and set at 1GB instead of 512GB.

Accepted Answer

I checked the OptiPlex specs on Dell's website and it does have 2 M.2 slots. Of course, several factors can impact use of SSDs.

First, make sure your system has the latest BIOS.

Second, do an Internet search for "intel 660p driver."  There look at their support site.  Follow directions to update firmware of the SSD.

Three, the site also has a SSD Install Boot Guide available.   See if that helps any.

Finally, if nothing works, do call Dell.  I assume the system came with a 3-year warranty and they can help you take care of this problem.

Question 10

Will this product work with a MSI B85-G41 motherboard? Specs list PCI-E x16, PCI-E GEN 3(16), 2(4) slots. Thank you.

Accepted Answer

It does not look like that motherboard has an m.2 slot to connect this NVMe drive. You will want to buy a traditional SATA based SSD like the Samsung 860 EVO which would just hook in using a SATA port like any typical 2.5" hard disk.

Questions & Answers