SATA-II failure to live up to specifications..?

[GomJabbar]

But anyhow , since either their Marvel chip or ICH8 is faulty, it would still probably bomb out after such attempts.

I wonder , since they stated that they have faulty Marvel chip , if we would be able to make them change the faulty component anyhow.

IMO, just because one chip does not perform as fast as another chip does not make it faulty. It just has a lower spec. For instance, saying a Pentium II does not perform at the speed of a Pentium III does not make the Pentium II faulty. Can you prove that the Marvel chip was supposed to run at 3.0Gb/s?

Whatever Lenovo's reasoning for using the Marvel chip was, I doubt if they would have knowingly chosen a faulty component. They probably chose the Marvel chip for either; compatibility reasons, lower cost, or availability.

Lenovo's choice of hardware components in this instance may have been in poor judgement, but that can be said of many things we buy these days. I just really don't like that Lenovo posted the 3Gb/s spec in the Tabook as they did for the T61. I hate misleading advertising!

[dsvochak]

According to Intel Press Releases, the Intel SSD drives were not released to the public until September and October, 2008.

According to the tabook, T61’s were available beginning in June, 2007.

Assuming the dates are correct, how can it possibly be intimated Lenovo misled customers about how a T61 might perform with a device that didn’t exist at the time the machine was released.

The complaints and arguments here are like arguing Lenovo mislead me into purchasing a T41 with a PATA drive even though SATA drives became available later.

[BillMorrow]

i am pleased to see that you gentlemen are researching this issue..

(i DID edit my post above for the reasons stated)

it appears that lenovo might have made an error in not clarifying the issue in the TABook..
some replies by lenovo to this issue also might not have been worded quite the way they might have been..
excusable error..

i know some of the members hereabouts like to tweak their systems to run faster than light..

if it is speed you want, run linux or even DOS..

all participants should know that these engineering decisions are (or were) made in yamato, japan, not in some lawyers office in beijing or new york..

but aside from the academic interest if it were me i would move ahead..

in this current economic downturn and the way the leftist US government seems to be working we ALL have other issues to deal with..
and so does lenovo.. they are trying to survive in a very bad fiscal environment..

[jketzetera]

This tells us nothing about the bridge sitting on the other side of UltraBay's connector, in the T61 (it doesn't have to be Marvel).

On the other side of the Ultrabay connector, there is no need for another bridge chip. The chip in the Ultrabay connector should be doing all the job.

Personally I think that such hardware modification (bypassing the bridge inside T61) is too complicated to be performed by end users and as such will never happen. You will probably have to get over it and get a T400/500.

There is likely no "bypass" fix. If the reduction in speed was done because the ICH8M is not reliably managing communications over both SATA (main bay) and PATA (Ultrabay) ports, then the only solution would be a BIOS fix that allows you to disable the Ultrabay completely and run the main bay in full speed. This fix is preferable over no fix at all.

[bill bolton]

On the other side of the Ultrabay connector, there is no need for another bridge chip. The chip in the Ultrabay connector should be doing all the job.

The device signal connector in the Ultrabay Slim port in a T61 is the same one that has been used since T40 days. It is designed to handle PATA signal connection to a PATA device.

There is a SATA to PATA bridge in the chassis of the T61 which provides the PATA signal to that connector. The PATA signal from that connector is used directly by the PATA optical drives and by the PATA HDD carriers that use the UltraBay Slim in a T61 model.

While the transition from PATA to SATA driver inrrefaces for HDD was well advanced by time that the T60 (and later the T61) were in design, SATA connected 9.5mm thick optical drives were not readily available.

Those who were around when the T6 series was initially introduced will be aware of the screams of pain from some parts of the ThinkPad user community about the changes between the T4x seress and T6x series which saw the T4x series accessory set largely outmoded by a new accessory set in the T6 series. The continued use of PATA connectors in the UltraBay Slim, which maintained usability of most existing UltraBay slim devices betweeen the T4x and T6x series, was seen a very positive feature at that time.

would be a BIOS fix that allows you to disable the Ultrabay completely and run the main bay in full speed. This fix is preferable over no fix at all.

It may be preferable for you, but it is definitely not preferable for me, and I suspect a lot of other long term ThinkPad users, to disable the Ultrabay completely.

[Troels]

If you have a 500 MB Photoshop file and it took 500/20=25 seconds to load with HD. With SSD 150MB/s it takes 3.3 seconds ( 500/150). With SSD 300Mb/s it takes 1.6 seconds.
What exactly is not obvious ? Math is rather simple , really.

But what makes you certain that loading time is necessarily a hyperbolic relationship when you must also take into account that the CPU has to do a lot of processing (decoding), and tons of data is read/written to/from memory ?
I would agree that we're still looking at very well-improved speeds, but you'll hit a very hard boundary, even much before 1.6 s. To put things into perspective, is a highly theoretical 1.6 s increase between SATAI and II really that bothering ?
For copying files to the same drive, your math is completely correct though.
EOMtp's question is very relevant to the correctness of the transfer rates during real-life use - when too simple models are used, albeit a bit off-topic.

Lenovo really seems to have a problem here, especially with the screenshot you posted ( http://ryanclark.net/tabook_excerpt.gif ) indicating a theoretical attainable transfer rate for an ICH8M listed on the specs page of a specific T61/p model. Mistakes like these simply must not happen.

[GomJabbar]

According to Intel Press Releases, the Intel SSD drives were not released to the public until September and October, 2008.

According to the Tabook, T61’s were available beginning in June, 2007.

Assuming the dates are correct, how can it possibly be intimated Lenovo misled customers about how a T61 might perform with a device that didn’t exist at the time the machine was released.

Samsung began shipping 3Gb/s SSD drives as early as February 2008.
http://www.techpowerup.com/52633/Samsun ... rives.html

These Samsung drives were announced as early as November 2007.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/05/sams ... varieties/

The page in the Tabook in the link posted previously is dated January 2008. If the 43N3406 128GB SATA 3.0Gb/s SDD was not available then or soon thereafter, then I don't understand why it is listed on a page dated January 2008.

Also, the Tabook dated June 2007 lists the following as the Architecture for the T61.

Mobile Intel PM965 Express Chipset (Memory Controller Hub);
ICH8M-Enhanced I/O Controller Hub (SATA300, ATA-100 EIDE,
PCI Express x1, PCI bus, USB, LPC interface, [Bluetooth], [fi ngerprint]) /
PCI bus (Ricoh® R5C847 Cardbus/1394/Multicard) /
LPC bus (WPCN385 Super I/O, Atmel® 97SC3203 TPM)

It seems reasonable to expect that the T61 would support 3Gb/s transfer speeds.

[jketzetera]

There is a SATA to PATA bridge in the chassis of the T61 which provides the PATA signal to that connector. The PATA signal from that connector is used directly by the PATA optical drives and by the PATA HDD carriers that use the UltraBay Slim in a T61 model.

Are you sure about that. You are effectively saying that Lenovo decided to use the SATA-port of the ICH8M chipset for the Ultrabay i.e.

ICH8M - SATA CHANNEL - SATA TO PATA BRIDGE CHIP - ULTRABAY PORT - ULTRABAY ADAPTER - PATA TO SATA BRIDGE CHIP - SATA HDD

I am saying that the layout is

ICH8M - PATA CHANNEL - ULTRABAY PORT - ULTRABAY ADAPTER - PATA TO SATA BRIDGE CHIP - SATA HDD

It may be preferable for you, but it is definitely not preferable for me, and I suspect a lot of other long term ThinkPad users, to disable the Ultrabay completely.

I stand by my statement. Absent any other fixes, a fix where you can manually enable/disable the Ultrabay as an option in the BIOS (and thus enable full speed on the main bay) is better than no fix at all. (It does not make you worse off since you can choose not to disable the Ultrabay)

On a side note, my Ultrabay adapter collections consists of three Ultrabay SATA adapters and one Ultrabay PATA adapter so I also would like to have a solution where I can use the main bay at 3 Gb/sec and have a functioning Ultrabay. However, such a solution is probably not easy (or even possible) to implement, while implementing an Ultrabay enable/disable option in the BIOS is probably doable.

[kotovsky7]

@jketzetera

I agree with you. Since the update would be optional - it would still show some desire to deal with the situation.
Which would be nice, viewing the support surrounding the issue.

>> On the other side of the Ultrabay connector, there is no need for another bridge chip. The chip in the Ultrabay connector should be doing all the job.
if this would've been the case they would just have to exchange adapters/cdroms ( which I believe they could do as damage-control with Mark's participation). ( or adapters with 3G support would appear on ebay, more likely).

But what makes you certain that loading time is necessarily a hyperbolic relationship when you must also take into account that the CPU has to do a lot of processing (decoding), and tons of data is read/written to/from memory ?
I would agree that we're still looking at very well-improved speeds, but you'll hit a very hard boundary, even much before 1.6 s. To put things into perspective, is a highly theoretical 1.6 s increase between SATAI and II really that bothering ?
For copying files to the same drive, your math is completely correct though.
EOMtp's question is very relevant to the correctness of the transfer rates during real-life use - when too simple models are used, albeit a bit off-topic.

Lenovo really seems to have a problem here, especially with the screenshot you posted ( http://ryanclark.net/tabook_excerpt.gif ) indicating a theoretical attainable transfer rate for an ICH8M listed on the specs page of a specific T61/p model. Mistakes like these simply must not happen.

I am certain of things because of my computer science education and good math skills.
Do you want me to show calculations or just doubt I am able to do them right?

Regarding the difference between SATA-II(speed and protocol) support - yes it bothers me.
want me to show why exactly it does ?

Regarding Lenovo's 'mistake' - since "SATA 3.0 Gb/s" refers to sata protocol(not sata-II) ,
and speed 3.0 Gb/s for the laptop ( mind you we are not reading Intel's chipset specifications), -
it was a lie, i.e. Lenovo knowingly put information in the Tabook that does not correspond to the manufactured laptops ,
i.e. misled customers.

it is safe to modify the topic on the thread back, because of the above stated , Bill,- how do you view such idea ?
maybe someone knows a good lawyer who could work on class-action ,
some good money ( and mine back ), from Lenovo (Intel along the way(ICH8), maybe Marvel(although I doubt it)).
And I can prove they did all of the above on purpose, i.e. "committed a fraud" ( not false advertising)!

*ranting mode
Senior Admin Edit:
the rant was deleted..
it contained nothing constructive and seems to me to be designed to only further the posters apparent vendetta..

remember, please keep it on topic and on point and don't drift into flame wars..

junior member edit(personal opinion):
(although I don't agree with you on The Whole Konstitution thing(hello all KDE users/fellow linux developers!:) ).)
(i.e. personal damages/time wasted - definitely not a personal grudge viewing economy( and half of my money for Intel's drive )).
also , if you feel there is a conflict of interest(I just looked at your frontpage) going on - I can move thread to facebook, if you'd let me
keep link here - I wouldn't want to be a 'burden' with such discussion (I mean original topic, of course).

The device signal connector in the Ultrabay Slim port in a T61 is the same one that has been used since T40 days. It is designed to handle PATA signal connection to a PATA device.

There is a SATA to PATA bridge in the chassis of the T61 which provides the PATA signal to that connector. The PATA signal from that connector is used directly by the PATA optical drives and by the PATA HDD carriers that use the UltraBay Slim in a T61 model.

you sure the bridge in the chassis ? i opened my adapter and found 'marvel' translator chip ( unless 'chassis' means the same as 'adapter').

[Troels]

Do you want me to show calculations [..]?
Regarding the difference between SATA-II(speed and protocol) support - yes it bothers me.
want me to show why exactly it does ?

Please, yes and yes - if you have time, though i find it hard to believe anyone would make calculations at such low abstraction levels (the reason i didn't do a mathematical elaboration above). So optionally, if you have a reliable source would just make it easier.

[kotovsky7]

[kotovsky7"]Do you want me to show calculations [..]?
Regarding the difference between SATA-II(speed and protocol) support - yes it bothers me.
want me to show why exactly it does ?[]
Please, yes and yes - if you have time.

I would have time if you would have computer science education and/or n years of relevant experience - otherwise it doesn't make sense.
so we could talk about kernel scheduling , cache burst speeds, and other tweaks ( i play around with linux kernel a little).
since speed-ups, which differ in "multiple" times , not "1-5%" are hard to discuss without certain knowledge - I wonder where your
calculations are not the same as mine, though, can you post them ?
(nothing to talk about without numbers , and I stand by everything said in my Photoshop file example, prove me wrong with numbers)

[winston.oyy]

Hi. I'm not a user of 61-series, so not really in a position to discuss too much about the technical aspects of SATA I/II.

However, in support of TS, I feel it's a matter of corporate social responsibility. Well well, these are big words but shouldn't Lenovo come forth earlier, in the interests of its loyal customers and state that it designed its hardware such that it has limitations? Yes, it might not be in its interests to do so in terms of profitability, but customers would have preferred Lenovo to be transparent about upgrading possibilities than remain silent till complaints arise.

Would being transparent about having a SATA-PATA bridge harm its revenues much? Not to loyalists, definitely. Being a user of T43, I'm appalled by the inability to use SATA HDDs despite the compatibility. But at least now, people who are seeking to get a 2nd handed T40 series has perfect information about what to expect. Those who still buy a T43 knowing it's HDD limitations are willing to accept the flaws for its performance. Is that too much to ask?

What TS is protesting against is merely an issue of such a responsibility to be accountable to its customers. If you intend to keep mum about such issues, how are you gonna expect customers to continue trusting your products? It might not matter much for someone who uses Thinkpad for 3 years and dump it, but loyalists who seek stability over longer periods would seek upgradability as a prime concern.

Again, maybe and it's only maybe, Lenovo doesn't need its loyal customers anymore. It prefers the mass market 'buy and throw' mentality over other qualities, looking at its pricing structures and new products.

[kotovsky7]

Winston, - you absolutely right, - you should see amount of people from Germany complaining ..
but to the point - everybody dealing with the situation swear ( just as myself ) - they will not give
another dollar to Lenovo. Personally , I consider them thieves at this point, elaborate, corporate , but thiefs and would want
some nice linux/open source oriented company to pop up that would do nice laptops and be user-oriented , once I (hope!)
they go bankrupt ( along with Microsoft ) - sorry for some flamewar ( on Microsoft topic).

[Troels]

I would have time if you would have computer science education and/or n years of relevant experience - otherwise it doesn't make sense.
so we could talk about kernel scheduling , cache burst speeds, and other tweaks ( i play around with linux kernel a little).
since speed-ups, which differ in "multiple" times , not "1-5%" are hard to discuss without certain knowledge - I wonder where your
calculations are not the same as mine, though, can you post them ?

Yes we could talk about a lot that wouldn't make your equation mean much, in particular at the extremes when other design factors limit the performance. I was just pointing out that simple fact, nothing else. As an applied signal processing and implementation engineer i do not work at too low abstraction levels, not even with simulations, so everything is at and above register transfer levels - so no "old-fashioned" math here, just an understanding of the different trade-offs between ultimate bandwidth and it's required complexity in implementation.
EDIT: It would be possible to find it's hardware limitations from timings, but the processing time done by the CPU or ASIC is vastly determined by the required algorithm (instructions) and especially it's parallelism.

[ajkula66]

kotovsky7 wrote:

I would have time if you would have computer science education and/or n years of relevant experience - otherwise it doesn't make sense.
so we could talk about kernel scheduling , cache burst speeds, and other tweaks ( i play around with linux kernel a little)

This forum has over 30,000 members. Do you really think that none of them has the knowledge and experience in the given fields that matches yours?

If you're really that certain your numbers are correct, post them, by all means and open your point to constructive criticism...or kudos...

[kotovsky7]

ajkula :

If you have a 500 MB Photoshop file and it took 500/20=25 seconds to load with HD. With SSD 150MB/s it takes 3.3 seconds ( 500/150). With SSD 300Mb/s it takes 1.6 seconds.
What exactly is not obvious ? Math is rather simple , really.

Do you see mistakes(maybe errors) anywhere above ? ( the numbers been posted - you should read the thread more carefully).

[JaneL]

also , if you feel there is a conflict of interest(I just looked at your frontpage) going on - I can move thread to facebook, if you'd let me keep link here - I wouldn't want to be a 'burden' with such discussion (I mean original topic, of course).

I seriously doubt that Bill feels that there is a conflict of interest because he rented out the home page to LogicBUY. He simply requires the forum members to follow the forum rules (link in my sig line). It's all about education and support where frothy-mouthed rants and attempts to whip up support for legal action are not welcome whether they're about Lenovo or warm, fuzzy kittens.

If the reference to moving the discussion to Facebook is referring to moving it to this forum's Facebook group, the rules of the forum apply there as well and will be enforced. If it refers to creating your own Facebook group for continuing down this path, that's between you and Facebook.

[dsvochak]

And I can prove they did all of the above on purpose, i.e. "committed a fraud" ( not false advertising)!

“Fraud”, in the law, is a term with a very specific meaning. Normally, I wouldn’t quote Wikipedia in circumstances like these, but the description there is close enough to be useful:

“A civil fraud typically involves the act of intentionally making a false representation of a material fact, with the intent to deceive, which is reasonably relied upon by another person to that person's detriment
* * *
Common law fraud has nine elements: (1) representation of an existing fact; (2) its materiality; (3) its falsity; (4) the speaker's knowledge of its falsity; (5) the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff; (6) plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity; (7) plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation; (8) plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and (9) consequent damages suffered by plaintiff. Most jurisdictions in the United States require that each element be proved with clear, cogent, and convincing evidence (very probable evidence) to establish a claim of fraud. The measure of damages in fraud cases is to be computed by the "benefit of bargain" rule, which is the difference between the value of the property had it been as represented, and its actual value. Special damages may be allowed if shown proximately caused by defendant's fraud and the damage amounts are proved with specificity.”

In order to “prove” Lenovo “committed a fraud” all nine elements would have to be established. The likelihood of that is approximately zero. For example, consider the issues of “materiality” (Element #2) and detrimental reliance (Elements #7 & #8).

The original post contains a statement beginning “all of customers”. The statement isn’t entirely correct as I am one of “all of customers” who had no such expectation after reading the specs. Therefore, any falsity to the statement was not “material” in my case. Further, I didn’t rely on the truth of the representation (fraud Element #7). If the statement isn’t material and/or there’s no detrimental reliance there’s no fraud.

Consider “benefit of the bargain” damages. What is the difference between the value of the T/R/X 6x had it been “as represented”, and its actual value? $0 is a reasonable estimate.

A subsequent post contains a statement beginning “Majority of the people…” I suspect, with no evidence, “majority” is an over-statement. I think the number of T/R/X 6x purchasers who could establish all elements of fraud regarding this issue is significantly less than a “majority” of the purchasers. (Perhaps again approaching zero).

There’s probably an attorney out there who would represent the OP in a suit against Lenovo, if only for the nuisance value, but it isn’t me.

[Daniel]

This is an apples to oranges comparison but when other companies have made small mistakes, they still go out their way to make the customer happy. It's just a matter of corporate responsibility.

2 examples:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news03/m ... yback.html
Mazda RX8s were listed on their spec sheet as having 248 horsepower. However, in the US version, the more restrictive emissions control system reduced horsepower output to 238. Mazda offers to fully buyback any 2004 RX8 or, should the owner decide to keep the car, give the owner free maintenance for 4 years and $500 worth of parts and accessories.

http://www.motorcycledaily.com/14februa ... uyback.htm
Yamaha's spec sheet listed the engine in their 2006 R6 motorcycle as capable of spinning at a rate of 17500 revolutions per minute. However, in actual use, the engine revved to only 16000 RPM. It's a tachometer error of 9% which has no bearing on the motorcycles performance. Yamaha also offers to buyback any 2006 R6 including taxes, setup charges, etc.

[hellosailor]

Are we just talking about a choke point on the Ultrabay adapters? Or, a speed limit for the internal hard drive itself?

I'd like to test my own drive speed to put eyeballs on this, anyone have a simple free benchmark test to recommend? One that might arguably be a reliable number?

[GomJabbar]

You might give h2bench a try. You can download it from the following site (I think site is ok, but scan the file before using it)
http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/ctsi.shtml

Here is a very brief article where it is used: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dat ... 037-8.html

I am posting this info from something I looked up awhile back. I think the software will work for this use, but I really haven't investigated it.

[hellosailor]

With a Seagate ST9320421AS (7200rpm/320GB drive, SATA-II, 16MB cache), write caching enabled, "advanced performance" not enabled, i.e. the Vista defaults, I'm seeing an average sequential written transfer of 49+MB/s and a sequential read with compare at 54+MB/s. On half-stroke tests, 66MB/s writes and 75MB/s reads. Seagate specs it for a maximum sustained transfer rate of 80MB/s--way below SATA-I speeds, so apparently the SATA-II specs are for burst modes only, and I'm getting all the performance the drive can deliver. (No SSD coming to this venue until the price ramps way down.<G>)

[Tests from whatever google found first "Bart's Stuff Test v.5.1.4".]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA ... 5_Gbit.2Fs The wikipedia indicates that hard drives actually saturate at 118MB/s for sustained transfers, while SATA-I in theory supports 150MB/s and SATA-II twice that--but that only the SSD's can take advantage of that difference.

Sounds like the whole issue will only affect SSD users, and that as usual (and since "way back") the problem is how the entire industry plays with numbers and ratings.

[BillMorrow]

i should point out here that the OP kotovsky7 has been banned for continuing to flail away at this issue in an unseemly fashion..

and, dsvochak, that is a VERY GOOD post on the parts of "fraud" and what it takes to win a civil case for one person or entity defrauding another..

this thread can continue since it is interesting and educational..

i MAY move it to the off topic forum since it is more generalized than T60/61 specific..

[winston.oyy]

This is an apples to oranges comparison but when other companies have made small mistakes, they still go out their way to make the customer happy. It's just a matter of corporate responsibility.

2 examples:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news03/m ... yback.html
Mazda RX8s were listed on their spec sheet as having 248 horsepower. However, in the US version, the more restrictive emissions control system reduced horsepower output to 238. Mazda offers to fully buyback any 2004 RX8 or, should the owner decide to keep the car, give the owner free maintenance for 4 years and $500 worth of parts and accessories.

http://www.motorcycledaily.com/14februa ... uyback.htm
Yamaha's spec sheet listed the engine in their 2006 R6 motorcycle as capable of spinning at a rate of 17500 revolutions per minute. However, in actual use, the engine revved to only 16000 RPM. It's a tachometer error of 9% which has no bearing on the motorcycles performance. Yamaha also offers to buyback any 2006 R6 including taxes, setup charges, etc.

Thanks for supporting my point. Indeed, many manufacturers had been very socially responsible for their own products, thus ensuring that customers remain satisfied. However, the fact that Lenovo seems reluctant to account for these leaves customers hanging in the air. While many customers who seek electronic longevity might turn away from Thinkpads, Lenovo seems to be emphasising on accountability while in warranty. Thinkpads and its business model of the past rely on a good name like what Sony used to do: good products that last long. Today's world is drastically different from yesteryears. Maybe, there's no more of such products anymore in future. Lenovo wants to compete with HP or Dell's market share? Absolutely possible. Whoever can delve and specialise in good corporate social responsibility might strive in the end, but how much of an importance that is in comparison to high inventory turnover in today's world is yet to be seen.

[BillMorrow]

from what i understand, kotovsky7 went into threatening mode at LF and thus killed any chance of a resolution to this matter..

anyone who has had dealings with large enterprises will know that sugar gets more help than vitriol..

right or wrong that aspect is over..

now, back to your regularly scheduled topic..

[Rich.Carpenter]

As I understand it, the T400/T500's are full SATA-II compliant, but Lenovo says they limit the drives to SATA-I "through firmware". Does that mean that any HDD purchased from Lenovo with a T500 will be incapable of being set to SATA-II mode?

[BillMorrow]

my GUESS is not the HDD firmware but controller chip firmware..

[Rich.Carpenter]

my GUESS is not the HDD firmware but controller chip firmware..

That was my initial guess as well, but after reading Mark Hopkins' "official" response, the following exerpt leads me to believe otherwise:

"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."

It looks like if I install my own SATA-II drives, jumpered to function at SATA-II, then I should get 3.0GB/s from either bay. It's also possible that he was referring only to SSD's, as that was a primary focus of the discussion.

I guess I'll find out one way or another in a couple of weeks.

[Nameless]

Thinkpads and its business model of the past rely on a good name like what Sony used to do: good products that last long. Today's world is drastically different from yesteryears. Maybe, there's no more of such products anymore in future.

More's the pity. Hopefully Lenovo won't suffer the same fall from grace that Sony has in recent years...

[dsvochak]

As Bill wrote: back to the regularly scheduled topic. Here’s a quote from the OP:

If you have a 500 MB Photoshop file and it took 500/20=25 seconds to load with HD. With SSD 150MB/s it takes 3.3 seconds ( 500/150). With SSD 300Mb/s it takes 1.6 seconds.

If the numbers in the quote are right (I don’t use Photoshop or have an SSD so I can’t test), is it correct that the issue is the difference between the 3.3 seconds and the 1.6 seconds? If so, why does anyone care?

Isn’t it the case that, once the file is loaded, the limiting factor on productivity is how quickly the user can operate the keyboard or other input device? In the real world you’d have to be loading a lot files for the 1.7 second time differential to amount to a significant difference in productivity.

On the other hand, the asserted 20-25 seconds to load a file with a HD vs. 3.3 seconds with SSD could lead to some increase in productivity. Reading all this reminds me of my 560Z running W2K compared to a T41. The 560Z took a lot longer to boot but not all that much longer to load files. In real world usage is there really that much difference between a HD and an SSD?