Have an X220T 4298 4TU and want to upgrade a bit

[jniffen]

Bought a used X220T (4298-4TU), I7, 4 GB, 128 GB SSD.

I'd like to make a few changes but I'll look for input.

The memory, want to get Crucial 2x4GB sticks.
Crucial's memory scanner suggest
DDR3 PC3-10600 • CL=9 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC •
DDR3-1333 • 1.35V • 512Meg x 64
Part #: CT3324657

I was wondering if this was any (faster or more heat or shorten battery life)

Also the SSD is nice, but I'm tempted to put a VM on the system thus I need a larger drive.
Or perhaps setup a mulit boot, W7, OSX and Linux

I was looking at the Hiatachi HGST Travelstar Z7K500
500 GB Slim 2.5 " SATA 600 7200 RPM
Again, speed, heat and batter life.

In this area I've read something of a mSATA option or setup?
Does this work or crap out after a while. I've got a little cash to have some fun.

Hope I didn't ask too much in one sitting, but I'd like to know if anyone has done any of the above etc.

Thanks

[ZaZ]

I think the preferred setup would be the mSATA SSD, in whatever size you want(they go up to 480GB I believe) as the boot drive, and whatever size platter drive you want for storage where speed is not as important. The 7mm drives go up to 500GB. I've been running the 80GB Intel mSATA SSD and Hitachi Z5K500 in my X220i for a couple years without issue. If something goes bad, it's probably luck of the Irish more than anything else. I have noticed that the 7200RPM 7mm drives in the review units I've gotten(T430 and X230) have been noisier than the 5400RPM drives I've had in my X220i, though I didn't notice any difference in temps.

Outside of the benchmarks, I doubt you'd notice a difference in the memory. The important part is to get more if you need it. I usually buy used on eBay as that's where you'll get the best prices.

[FierceDeityLink]

I'm planning on doing the same thing. Probably a 256GB Crucial M4 mSATA and a 500GB Z7K500. Hoping the price dips back down to $160 or so for the M4.

Apparently, the newer BIOSes (past 1.28) lock the memory to 1333 MHz. Although, I'll probably go with 2x 8GB 1600 since the price is negligible.

[jniffen]

OK purchased a Plextoer PX-256M5M mSATA and a Hitachi Z7K500 drive.

I used Acronois 2012 to clone from the original SSD 128Gb drive to the mSATA.

My eventual plan is to boot from the mSATA for Windows 7 and then setup the Hitachi for OSX and CentOS.

What I've discovered the W7 was setup as a Legacy SATA not UEFI.
My understanding OSX requires to boot from UEFI to work.
Presently the BIOS is set to boot from either Legacy or UEFI.

Is there performance hit for running the mSATA in legacy mode?
I tried to boot the W7 with the BIOs set as UEFI mode only and it wouldn't boot.

Finally, is there a way to setup the mSATA drive to boot as a UEFI drive?

Thanks