Hello,

I'm configuring a W530 to be purchased for photo editing, in particular, high resolution stitched panoramas. File sizes will get quite large.

I have a little experience building my own desktop 4 years ago and used a 10,000rpm raptor as a scratch disk then. Now I understand it might be best to use two SSD's in a raid configuration for this.

I'm not even certain if the idea I have will work, but I thought I'd ask the community as I haven't had much success searching just yet.

I presume I'd be better off using two SSD's internally in a raid0 configuration set up by Lenovo as scratch disks (say two, 256gb Crucials) and have the OS and programs on an mSATA SSD (probably also of 256GB [is sata ii connection]). Data storage would be on external harddrives.

Question is - Would I be able to order the W530 with two 1TB HDD's in Raid0, then after mirroring OS/backup onto a later installed mSATA, replace those drives with two 256gb SSD's? The 1tb drives would then go into external enclosures (possibly a single raid1, esata or usb3 enclosure?[would need flush mount esata for this, if esata is the way to go?]).

OR - would it make more sense to have the two 1tb harddrives set up as raid1 and keep the data onboard in those, and make an SSD raid0 enclosure for an external scratch disk (via esata? or USB3?)?

I'd regularly backup the data manually to a third external drive as well in either of the above cases.

One other question. Would ordering a Lenovo raid configuration negatively effect performance in other areas? I thought I had read something about this on a forum in the last couple days as I've been researching, but cannot find it again. I do remember the question was unresolved where ever it was I found it. Might have had something to do with them using a different motherboard with a raid setup?

Thank you for your help,

Brian

So after talking with Lenovo tech support, it sounds like there shouldn't be a problem with moving the OS onto the msata and then swapping the drives for ssd's. Not certain I trust tech entirely though. Anyone had any experience with this?

Still wondering what might be best way to go with scratch disks too. On board or external (via USB3 or esata?) speedwise? Not sure I've wrapped my head around all the different reading/writing speeds with different connections and raid involved too.

Thanks,
Brian

EDIT- also, tech told me that raid could be set up later, on my own through the BIOS and didn't need to be set up at time of ordering. Can anyone confirm this?

I ordered my w530 yesterday with the RAID option. Initially I'll run the current drives as is but eventually switch to the SSD. Let us know how it goes. This will be my third thinkpad over a span of +10 years. Their support was a class act years ago. I can not speak to recent history.