Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,
I have a question about X61t.
I just got intel X25 80G ssd, and it runs perfect on it. However, after I did some harddrive test with CrystalDiskMark, the reading speed only 130MB/s, write is 62MB/s.
From intel website,The Intel 80G ssd has read speed 250MB/s, and from TABOOK, X61t has SATA300 interface, but I could not get that speed at all, not even over 150MB/s. I did setup BIOS to ACHI mode, and still got the same read speed at 130MB/s.
From you experience, did I miss any setup? BTW, I did some vista tweak for SSD from OCZ website.

ronan_zj wrote:Hello all,
I have a question about X61t.
I just got intel X25 80G ssd, and it runs perfect on it. However, after I did some harddrive test with CrystalDiskMark, the reading speed only 130MB/s, write is 62MB/s.
From intel website,The Intel 80G ssd has read speed 250MB/s, and from TABOOK, X61t has SATA300 interface, but I could not get that speed at all, not even over 150MB/s. I did setup BIOS to ACHI mode, and still got the same read speed at 130MB/s.
From you experience, did I miss any setup? BTW, I did some vista tweak for SSD from OCZ website.

Congrats, you found out about the transfer speed cap in the last generation of Thinkpads.
The new generation of Thinkpads has transfer speed cap at around 150MB/sec

thats [censored] werid, coz SATA300 should have fast reading speed than 130MB/s. How is ur X61t performance on Samsung 128G?

called Intel, and rep said my chipset 965 supports SATA300, and he had no idea what Lenovo did on the motherboard.
So said, what a waste of SATA300, and intel SSD.

That's disappointing. I hope it gets resolved. I have the same laptop, minus 1GB ram and 1GB turbo memory.

at this moment,
i think there is no point to get higher speed SSD drive, coz the mobo is only SATA150. Guys, go for Samsung SSD.

What if SATA-300 can be enabled via a BIOS update later...?

BTW, this has been mentioned in the official Lenovo blog as well...

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=173

P.S. Have you written to Lenovo support directly...? I mean... Not the forums...

loyukfai wrote:What if SATA-300 can be enabled via a BIOS update later...?

BTW, this has been mentioned in the official Lenovo blog as well...

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=173

P.S. Have you written to Lenovo support directly...? I mean... Not the forums...

I think thats the way how thinkpad designed. I tried call IBM EZservice, and the guy was extremely rude and had no idea what I was talking about. I understand that those guys are different from the tech in NC.

Does anybody have an update on this? Is there an official statement or anything from Lenovo?

I don't suppose it works any faster under Linux? Just hoping..

I got interested in SSD and bought an X40 to play with. Then I got an X61t since I thought it was cool and fairly to upgrade to real SSD in the future. This current limitation is kind of a letdown for me if it can't be resolved (without new laptop purchase)..

loyukfai wrote:BTW, this has been mentioned in the official Lenovo blog as well...

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=173

I just wonder why the guy at this blog stated that SSDs should be defragged on regular basis

Anyone got any updates?

I had to call lenovo today, because my laptop was making a high frequency noise whenever I move around a window on my screen. Technician was insisting that is a software problem, and he didn't have any idea what hardware and software problems are. I also told him my digitizer is not working properly, by skipping some lines when I draw. He also kept saying that is a software problem, and that he can't help. I asked for higher in the chain, and when I got connected, told him that the first guy that I talked to needs basic training. Rhey are sending me a depot repair return box.

Anyways, I asked about the SATA limit issue while on the phone. The higher level technician wasn't aware about it, and said it should work as SATA2. I said there are people on forums complaining that these laptops doesn't support SATA2 speed, and sent him a link to one of the post at lenovo forums. I hope they can get it fixed soon.

On my tablet, it shows in 'intel matrix storage manager' that my SDD is connected as generation 1, which means sata1. My WD 320 GB 5400 rpm HDD was also like that too. So I'm wondering if it is limited by 150MB/s or just by SATA1. Is everyone else seeing the connection as SATA1 too?

X61tablet, X25-m, XP, Vista x64, MT/MV

TAbook says that these machines support SATA at 3Gb/s. There must be some BIOS or driver setting that limits the speed. Very strange. It may have been done to extend battery life or limit the ICH8M temperature.

awolfe63 wrote:TAbook says that these machines support SATA at 3Gb/s.

Just a guess..., but I believe it doesn´t necessarily mean that this ThinkPad has SATA-300 interface. The point is that SATA-300 is backwards compatible with SATA-150, so a laptop with SATA-150 "supports" SATA-300.

ok, my final conclusion is it DOES NOT have SATA 3.0G capacity, It DOES NOT support SATA 3.0G. instead, SATA2 hard drive support SATA1.5 interface.

So, I wont waste any money on new SSD drive, such as new San Disk SSD, OCZ Vertex ect...
coz my X61t only support 1st gen SATA.
I will wait, and buy a samsung 128G SSD, or Corsair SSD which use samsung controller.

I feel like I waste money on my intel SSD, coz I can never experience the 250MB/s reading speed.

Maybe slightly offtopic: I wonder what you guys need 250 MB/s read and >130 MB/s write speeds for on a laptop drive with say 60 GB capacity?

Thanks,

Marin

Because it cuts a minute and a half off of boot time, of course!

awolfe63 wrote:Because it cuts a minute and a half off of boot time, of course!

Nope, it doesn´t really. You won´t see any boot time difference between 130 MB/s and 250 MB/s read (and say 130 MB/s and 80 MB/s for write). Besides, what makes difference in the boot time and application launch is the access time My Seagate 7200.3 outperforms my Hitachi 7K200 in read/write performance by far, but my every setup boots up faster with the 7K200 drive because it has better access times (about 2ms difference according to my benchmarks). Hence I don´t see any point in going for SSDs with even faster rates on a laptop. On a workstation where one can set RAED (=redundant array of expensive disks) and thus increase drive capacity this is of course a whole other story, but not on a laptop...

Cheers,

Marin

ronan_zj wrote:I will wait, and buy a samsung 128G SSD, or Corsair SSD which use samsung controller.

Last I checked the Samsung 128 GB SLC SSD and the 160 GB Intel X-25M MLC SSD (recently available for purchase) are both around the same price of roughly $700.

And benchmarks gave the 80 GB version of the X-25M an edge over the Samsung in most tests, so I'm assuming the 160 GB flavor will offer similar results. So if you really were going to wait for the Samsung one might as well buy the newer, larger Intel at the same price. Who cares if you can't utilize its full read/write capacity, when your other alternative is both smaller in disk space and offers slightly worse performance, should you eventually place it in a machine that can fully utilize it?

Buyer beware... About the X25-M...

http://arstechnica.com/news/2009/02/sec ... m-ssds.ars

"Intel told PCPerspective it was working on a good solution, but that one isn't available yet"...

Edit: Sorry... Should have posted the original article link as well...

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert

P.S. Intel's SSD is still a heck of a monster MLC SSD. Prospective buyers may keep in mind of this issue and see how it's resolved through.

Nope, it doesn´t really. You won´t see any boot time difference between 130 MB/s and 250 MB/s read (and say 130 MB/s and 80 MB/s for write).

It is not true that we won't see any difference, but I also don't agree that it will cut off 1.5 minutes of boot time. Maybe couple more seconds faster with SATA2 speeds. But that's what we paid for, isn't it?

Besides, having such a fast SSD drive on a laptop makes a pleasant laptop computing experience. Unlike desktops where one can easily upgrade most of the components, the only thing laptop users can upgrade is RAM and HDD.

I agree that the seek time (with at least some good transfer speed) is really what makes the whole system feel like it's running really fast. Even running my thinkpad x61t on speed capped SATA1 mode, it feels even faster than a 15000 rpm scsi hdd on my desktop.

I am still disappointed with Lenovo for creating such a limit in the first place.

Marin85 wrote:Maybe slightly offtopic: I wonder what you guys need 250 MB/s read and >130 MB/s write speeds for on a laptop drive with say 60 GB capacity?

I think the point isn't having a fast drive. I think the real point behind this topic is why it's not possible to use on a Thinkpad 100% of the capacity of some piece of hardware we bought whereas on some regular laptops it's possible.

Welcome to our forum!

I see your point. You may also want to check out this thread in the T6x subforum -> SATA-II failure to live up to specifications..?.

Cheers,

Marin

jonas-fr wrote:
I think the point isn't having a fast drive. I think the real point behind this topic is why it's not possible to use on a Thinkpad 100% of the capacity of some piece of hardware we bought whereas on some regular laptops it's possible.

The speed cap has been fixed with the latest generation of Thinkpads, so I think your point is no longer valid. Although, I agree that Lenovo shouldn't even cap the speed in the first place. However, you also need to understand that a few years ago, nobody even knows what SSDs are, and conventional HDD doesn't even get anywhere near the maximum speed of SATA-I. Thus, the engineers at Lenovo decide to cap the speed to save more power.

AvalonXIII wrote: The speed cap has been fixed with the latest generation of Thinkpads, so I think your point is no longer valid. Although, I agree that Lenovo shouldn't even cap the speed in the first place. However, you also need to understand that a few years ago, nobody even knows what SSDs are, and conventional HDD doesn't even get anywhere near the maximum speed of SATA-I. Thus, the engineers at Lenovo decide to cap the speed to save more power.

Yeah you're right, but as Marin85 mentionned through his link I think Lenovo should respect the specs they advertise, however this will finish in court...

Marin85 wrote:Maybe slightly offtopic: I wonder what you guys need 250 MB/s read and >130 MB/s write speeds for on a laptop drive with say 60 GB capacity?

Thanks,

Marin

Let me give the obvious answer:

Because we can.

Because our technology enables to.

As such, we as geeks / techs / power users demand hi-speed and there will be hell to pay if we don't have it. If I know the tech supports it, then I want it. Pretty simply.

I won't be happy until everything is chip based and multiple times faster than what we have now.

Why?

Because data is electrons and I know how fast electrons are capable of traveling.

Temetka wrote:Let me give the obvious answer:

Because we can.

Because our technology enables to.

As such, we as geeks / techs / power users demand hi-speed and there will be hell to pay if we don't have it. If I know the tech supports it, then I want it. Pretty simply.

I won't be happy until everything is chip based and multiple times faster than what we have now.

Why?

Because data is electrons and I know how fast electrons are capable of traveling.

Besides this? But I admit I couldn´t agree more. I was just looking for something more "rational" I guess the expression "a computer fast as light" now becomes literal

Marin85 wrote:Maybe slightly offtopic: I wonder what you guys need 250 MB/s read and >130 MB/s write speeds for on a laptop drive with say 60 GB capacity?
Thanks,
Marin

For work and play. Also for Vista, which is a slug at starting up (at least for me). I'm a software developer and some of the tasks involve dealing with data and also the tools can be disk intensive. The faster it goes for me, the more time I save.

ronan_zj: How do you like the vertex? That was the alternative to the Intel that I was considering. I assume it's as fast as the Intel on the x61t?