T60 Sata II speeds

[lawlen2]

How can I find out if Lenovo is working on a fix for the sata II cap on the T60 series? Also, where do i complain at Lenovo that would be most effective? I am starting to get angry about this, I feel I was mislead in to thinking I had sata II support in my T60p. I just put my x25 in an $800 HP and its read speed was 230!! My $2000 T60p reads at 120, this is unacceptable.

[Marin85]

From what I read in this forum, Lenovo is working on a fix for the T61 series, which however doesn´t seem to be their first priority right now, but I haven´t heard anything regarding the T60 series. Having all this in mind, I wouldn´´t count on such a "fix". I´m not even sure if it is just the BIOS or even hardware-related. For t61 there will be probably a BIOS fix. Some folks claim that it´s the Intel controller ICH7 that has a design flaw which doesn´t allow SATA II. As already said, most of this are only rumors...

Cheers

Marin

[geohsia]

Any updates whether this will happen or not? I'm in the market for an SSD and the cost difference is huge if max throughput is 3Gb/s vs 1.5Gb/s. Thanks.

George

[Marin85]

As fot the T61 series there will probably be such a fix... some day... As for the T60 series I would say don´t count on this for now. Even if miracles happen, this one won´t be soon.

Cheers

Marin

[cscs3]

How can I find out if Lenovo is working on a fix for the sata II cap on the T60 series? Also, where do i complain at Lenovo that would be most effective? I am starting to get angry about this, I feel I was mislead in to thinking I had sata II support in my T60p. I just put my x25 in an $800 HP and its read speed was 230!! My $2000 T60p reads at 120, this is unacceptable.

This problem has been with many series of Thinkpad and Lenovo model. Do not think the fix is coming yet.

[lawlen2]

I found this on the Lenovo blog:

All,

I've investigated this issues at length through engineering and have received the following explaination of SATA data rates available on the Santa Rosa ('61) and current Montevina based systems (T400/T500, W500, W700, etc)...

"For Santa Rosa-based systems, the Intel ICH8 supports a SATA bus speed of up to 3.0 Gb/s. Lenovo made a design decision to prioritize maintaining compatibility with Ultrabay disk drives, which are connected via a SATA-to-PATA conversion chip which could not handle a 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed reliably. Therefore the system was standardized to 1.5 Gb/s.
In testing rotating media drives, our measurements show data throughput difference between 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s bus speed is less than 5% since the drive mechanics are the limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.
For those customers who choose to purchase an after-market SSD drive capable of SATA bus speeds up to 3.0 Gb/s, the system will interface with them at 1.5 Gb/s. Lenovo's official position is that the Santa Rosa systems are working as designed.
The Montevina based systems which began shipping last year have direct SATA interfaces for both drive bays and are enabled at a system level for SATA bus speeds of 3.0 Gb/s performance. Current Lenovo drives have firmware set to 1.5 Gb/s data rates.
Exchanging these drives for after-market drives which support SATA bus of 3.0 Gb/s should provide for the higher data rate at the overall system level. Again, it should be noted that our performance measurements show less than 5% performance improvement between 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speeds for rotating drives, since the drive mechanics are the limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.
After-market SSDs which support SATA bus speed of 3.0 Gb/s will operate at that bus speed. Depending on the data transfer test method used, your actual data throughput from a 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed should be 220-250 MB/s and about 90-120MB/s throughput when running on SATA bus of 1.5 Gb/s. This is due to the bus signaling used for the SATA bus, as well as overhead for error checking."



____________________________________________
Regards/Cordialement/Cordiali saluti/Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Saludos/
Mark Hopkins
Project Manager, Social Media

I recently install my x25 ssd in a T400 and it benched at sataII speeds(230MB/s). The above information would have been nice to know before I purchased my T60p. Would the above qualify for a class action lawsuit. I should have went to law school

[Marin85]

Wow, thanks, these are some good news! Now, I´m going for my W700 with 3 Intel X-25E drives in RAID

[Temetka]

If I read that correctly, SATAII is not coming to the T60?

[treydur]

I have a T61P and would like to upgrade to a 128GB SSD. However, in the process I am encountering conflicting information. This is for my primary drive, not the ultra bay. According to Intel, my chipset supports 3G transfer rates, but apparently Lenovo has not enabled this for the T61p? So even replacing the primary drive which is currently: HITACHI Travelstar 7K200 HTS722020K9SA00 (0A50940) 200GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s wont add any real improvment ? and may, in fact, moot my next question. Can the primary drive be the smaller 1.8" SSD ? sometimes referred to as SATA 1.8 Micro Slim or uSata

I had planned on another 2 years for this workhorse, but now, without 3G I am not so sure. Apologies if this has been answered definitively, but I could not find the answer I wanted with search function

[treydur]

hmm, ill answer part of my own question in mild fury, the T61P will in fact support Sata II or 3G, which apparently means it will recognize it and use it, but it will be capped at Sata 1 / 1.5G speeds due to internal limitations.

no wonder the information is conflicting. way to help me get the most value out of my purchase Lenovo, appreciate that. Like the 4965AGN with the 'N' disabled wasn't cute enough, now I have Sata 3G, but oops, the actual 3G part is throttled..


and here I thought I was a Thinkpad for life kind of guy.

[basketb]

Maybe this is the answer you are looking for.

[basketb]

All,

I've investigated this issues at length through engineering and have received the following explaination of SATA data rates available on the Santa Rosa ('61) and current Montevina based systems (T400/T500, W500, W700, etc)...

"For Santa Rosa-based systems, the Intel ICH8 supports a SATA bus speed of up to 3.0 Gb/s. Lenovo made a design decision to prioritize maintaining compatibility with Ultrabay disk drives, which are connected via a SATA-to-PATA conversion chip which could not handle a 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed reliably. Therefore the system was standardized to 1.5 Gb/s.
In testing rotating media drives, our measurements show data throughput difference between 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s bus speed is less than 5% since the drive mechanics are the limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.
For those customers who choose to purchase an after-market SSD drive capable of SATA bus speeds up to 3.0 Gb/s, the system will interface with them at 1.5 Gb/s. Lenovo's official position is that the Santa Rosa systems are working as designed.
The Montevina based systems which began shipping last year have direct SATA interfaces for both drive bays and are enabled at a system level for SATA bus speeds of 3.0 Gb/s performance. Current Lenovo drives have firmware set to 1.5 Gb/s data rates.
Exchanging these drives for after-market drives which support SATA bus of 3.0 Gb/s should provide for the higher data rate at the overall system level. Again, it should be noted that our performance measurements show less than 5% performance improvement between 1.5 Gb/s and 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speeds for rotating drives, since the drive mechanics are the limiting throughput factor, rather than the SATA bus itself.
After-market SSDs which support SATA bus speed of 3.0 Gb/s will operate at that bus speed. Depending on the data transfer test method used, your actual data throughput from a 3.0 Gb/s SATA bus speed should be 220-250 MB/s and about 90-120MB/s throughput when running on SATA bus of 1.5 Gb/s. This is due to the bus signaling used for the SATA bus, as well as overhead for error checking."



____________________________________________
Regards/Cordialement/Cordiali saluti/Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Saludos/
Mark Hopkins
Project Manager, Social Media

This is really disappointing. Sure, it works as designed for the T61(p) but the design seems flawed and they are not willing to listen to users and make it work better.

[lawlen2]

I do not believe that intel is responsible for the speed cap. I believe it is solely a decision by Lenovo. I remember reading a review of the x25 in which it was benched on a Asus motherboard that use the ICH7 chip. It benched at sata 2 speeds. I also remember that a Promise raid controller choked it to sata 1 speeds. I believe it was xbit labs,but i am not certain of it. I have check the laptops that i have access to but they are mostly thinkpads and yes that is primarily my fault. I will be acquainting myself with HP, Dell, and Asus notebooks with an eye on future purchases. What burns my butt is that i waited for sata2 support before I purchased the T60p's. I hate being played and that is what Lenovo did buy capping the sata speed and not informing the customer.

[bill bolton]

I believe it is solely a decision by Lenovo.

Some Dell laptops have similar issues, so its not solely a Lenovo decision by any means.

[geohsia]

For those customers who choose to purchase an after-market SSD drive capable of SATA bus speeds up to 3.0 Gb/s, the system will interface with them at 1.5 Gb/s. Lenovo's official position is that the Santa Rosa systems are working as designed.
...
This is really disappointing. Sure, it works as designed for the T61(p) but the design seems flawed and they are not willing to listen to users and make it work better.

Yeah, this is a feature not a bug right? "As designed" is just Marketing speak. Other laptop manufacturers had to make the same decision and didn't cop out. Comparing with cheap Dells is disingenuous. If we wanted a $500 Dell we would have bought one. We buy a $3k+ business laptop because it's supposed to be better than the rest.

George

[aaa]

Where are these ICH6/7 laptops that support SATA II? Alot of laptop manufacturers were probably in the same boat, as SATA cdroms are a recent thing. Anyhow, my opinion is that it's more of a "we need to release X months from now and have to work with the available technology" than a laziness issue.

[bill bolton]

Comparing with cheap Dells is disingenuous. If we wanted a $500 Dell we would have bought one.

The Dell Mobile Precision 4300 is hardly "cheap", with configurations going up to over US$3000 and it has the same SATA issue!

[geohsia]

The Dell Mobile Precision 4300 is hardly "cheap", with configurations going up to over US$3000 and it has the same SATA issue!

Thanks for the clarification. I just find it annoying that everyone tells me the T61 supports SATA II though it is limited to 1.5Gb/s. It's like saying I support USB 2 but only transfer at 11 Mb/s or whatever the original USB 1.0 spec was. It either supports it and supports it fully as it should or it doesn't. Just because you can plug it in doesn't mean you support it. The fact that you can plug a SATA II drive into a SATA controller is a feature of the SATA spec. When I bought the T61 all of the information I got from IBM was that it supported SATA II but at this point clearly it doesn't.

George

[bill bolton]

I just find it annoying that everyone tells me the T61 supports SATA II though it is limited to 1.5Gb/s. It's like saying I support USB 2 but only transfer at 11 Mb/s or whatever the original USB 1.0 spec was.

No.

The original SATA specification does not support NCQ. The SATA implementation in the T61 (and similar ThinkPads) is SATA II as it definitely does support NCQ, however it is speed limited to 1.5GB. NCQ is significant in terms of achieving high SATA throughputs, even at 1.5Gb maximum transfer speeds. What you don't get is maximum 3.0Gb speed.



If you are going to have a rant, you should at least make sure you do know what you are ranting about.

[geohsia]

No.

Haha. Nice use of emoticons. The USB analogy may not be perfect, but it drives across the point. When people buy something with USB 2.0 support they expect it to perform like USB 2.0, not 1.0. If you tell me that that the T61 supports SATA 3Gb/s shouldn't I expect it to perform like SATA 3Gb/s and not SATA 1.5Gb/s?

The original SATA specification does not support NCQ. The SATA implementation in the T61 (and similar ThinkPads) is SATA II as it definitely does support NCQ, however it is speed limited to 1.5GB. NCQ is significant in terms of achieving high SATA throughputs, even at 1.5Gb maximum transfer speeds. What you don't get is maximum 3.0Gb speed.

Yeah... and? As you know, there there is a reason the SATA rev 2.x spec is called SATA 3Gb/s and not actually SATA II. Yes, there are layers to the spec. Don't you think the speed is well... most important?

If you are going to have a rant, you should at least make sure you do know what you are ranting about.

I'm sure you're more knowledgeable and we can split hairs about the spec all day long and "up to" speeds. All I know is that my laptop was bought with hard earned money and I just want it to fully support what it claims to support.

George