Thinkpads Forum

I'm ready to upgrade the little HDD on my lovely X60s, and I wonder what options there are and what others have tried.

I think there is an SSD available, too.

I've replaced a 100GB 5400rpm drive with a WD Scorpio Black 160GB 7200rpm drive when they were on sale on NewEgg.

I think any 2.5" SATA drive will work- just keep in mind that the X60-series only supports SATA I (1.5Gbps). I've debated whether or not a top of the line SSD would be beneficial, or one that maxes out around that transfer rate. Of course, the important metric is random read/write, as that affects perceived usage speed ups.

There is/was a 1.8" SSD with 2.5" adapter for sale in the Marketplace. This combination gives you an SSD at a lighter weight.

The Hitachi or Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM drives are fast, cheap, and a certain improvement for your X60s.

If you're looking at SSD's, try the Intel X25-M, either 80 or 160GB.

Note that there are two generations of the Intel SSDs. The first does not support TRIM while the second generation does. Your operating system would need to support it as well (Win7) in order to take advantage of it.

John H wrote:I'm ready to upgrade the little HDD on my lovely X60s, and I wonder what options there are and what others have tried.

I think there is an SSD available, too.

hi, i am thinking to upgrade to SSD too,
Do i need to upgrade my existing X60s BIOS to certain version?

Harryc wrote:If you're looking at SSD's, try the Intel X25-M, either 80 or 160GB.

ya, i found X25M tempting price,
before buying it,
wanna do final confirmation, is my current X60s BIOS compatible or need some "hack" ??

any full procedures and guide?

The X25 recommend was back in May. Intel's latest 2.5" SATA SSD is the 320.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... eries.html

gunston wrote:... is my current X60s BIOS compatible or need some "hack" ??

Win7 is optimized the best so far as Windows goes for an SSD.
On a fresh un-used SSD set BIOS to AHCI, boot DVD, click "custom install" and Win7 will see the raw space and highlight it blue.
Click next. Disable defrag/superfetch/drive indexing.
Download and install Intel RST-service.
You now have Trim and the best AHCI drivers.

I've recently put an 80GB Intel 320 in my x61. Runs great, cooler, quieter, battery lasts longer. Much quicker to boot. Even compared with the 320GB WD Scorpio Black it replaced.

There's a bios "hack" out there. Middleton BIOS. That enables the x series to run at sata II rather than sata I speeds.

SSD + RMclock and TPfancontrol really has sorted out my x61. Fast, cool, quiet and long lasting.

That hack is ONLY for the T61/R61/X61, and does NOT apply to T60/R60/X60/Z61.

RealBlackStuff wrote:That hack is ONLY for the T61/R61/X61, and does NOT apply to T60/R60/X60/Z61.

Well there you go...

In that case... I'd maybe look at a hybrid drive rather than an SSD.

Seagate Momentus XT have been reviewed well...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seag ... hybrid-hdd

inogen wrote:In that case... I'd maybe look at a hybrid drive rather than an SSD

I have an SSD in my X60 and it works really nice. I also have an SSD in my T61 with hacked bios and to be honest I don't find any big difference in performance between both. But both are used for normal web usage and watching videos. Maybe for heavy applications like CAD, video or photo editing is different...

Just my 2 cents...

Tasurinchi wrote:I have an SSD in my X60 and it works really nice. I also have an SSD in my T61 with hacked bios and to be honest I don't find any big difference in performance between both. But both are used for normal web usage and watching videos. Maybe for heavy applications like CAD, video or photo editing is different...

Just my 2 cents...

Maybe... I must admit, I saw some benefit from SATA II in terms of boot speed and application load times. Outlook (with a 7GB+ pst) and Photoshop. Not sure if anything else was different.

Probably helps with my vmware too, but I didn't have that installed with the standard bios.

By the same token though, if a hybrid disk drive is capable of almost saturating SATA I, it's quite likely that for web browsing and watching videos, you wouldn't tell the difference between one and an SSD.

Except you've have change in your pocket and a much higher capacity drive, a little extra noise/vibration and a lower battery life.