Thinkpads Forum

I'm thinking of getting a crucial m4 msata 256gb.. anyone tried their msata yet ?

I recently ordered a 128gb and Crucial shipped it out today. Will report back after it's up and running.

Excellent, thank for sharing the feedback with the forum. We should have two individual experiences to evaluate then as the 256gb was ordered in this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=105227. Looking forward to your experience with the 128gb.

What machine were you planning to put the 128gb in? Thanks!

wolfman wrote:What machine were you planning to put the 128gb in?

X220, currently with just the original 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi, which has been great, and which I'll be keeping in place for data storage.

Sweet, im in the process of getting rid of a bunch of my stuff and probably get one in a few weeks.. these are just as fast as the 7mm version right ?

rsutoratosu wrote:Sweet, im in the process of getting rid of a bunch of my stuff and probably get one in a few weeks.. these are just as fast as the 7mm version right ?

These are essentially the same thing as the full-size M4 (both 7mm and 9.5mm). Same controller.

Even Crucial themselves are selling this thing much cheaper than the competition, and it's hard to beat the price/performance ratio. The only other thing I'd consider is a Samsung 830, but those are apparently hard to find in the US. I'm also still not fully convinced of the SF-2200 controllers, which nearly eliminates all but the Crucial and Samsung drives from my choices.

I've got the m4 mSATA 256gb in an i7 x220.
Installed fine, recovery installation of win7pro64sp1 went without a hitch. WEI storage score is 7.8. For informational purposes, the mPCIe slot is only SATA2 (main bay is SATA3) on the x220. I believe both interfaces are SATA3 on the x230.

Anyway... So far, so good.
The mSATA SSD (OS, swap, apps) + main bay HDD (data) make a nice hybrid solution. Bringing RAM up to 8gb also does wonders for the graphics scores. All-in-all, a screaming little machine.

sarbin wrote:I believe both interfaces are SATA3 on the x230.

I don't think so. Unless Lenovo stopped routing the second SATA3 port to the docking station port, I'm pretty positive the msata slot is still SATA2. I'm also fairly certain that the docking station is used by a minority of Thinkpad users... but that's another story.

On a side note, apparently the Samsung 830 msata drives aren't supposed to be retail drives. Outside of the more expensive Runcore and Renice drives, I don't think you can beat the M4. Unless you're using one of the Intel 313 SLC drives.

Ordered the 256GB version for my T520, waiting on it's arrival which should be in about two days.. I'll probably pair it up with a 256GB Samsung 830 in the internal bay as bulk storage. Was considering using a 750GB mechanical drive, but I think I'll go all solid state.

Any specific metrics you're looking for?

I installed a Crucial M4 mSata 256GB on my X220 last week. Jumped the performance of my hard drive from 5.9 to 7.3. I believe 2.5 SSD's can jump performance to 7.8 on Windows but I was fairly happy with that as I now have a second drive available for all media etc.

Windows Experience Index Primary Hard disk Disk data transfer rate 8.1

Crucial msata 512 gb drive in X230T, i7, 16 gb Crucial RAM, Windows 8 RP x64.
I am pleased.

Overall WEI 6.4.

Received my brand new T430 last week - installed a Crucial 128 gb mSATA as boot disk yesterday... Along with 4 gb of their ram... Works GREAT! My system SCREAMS now!

I'm thinking of getting an mSATA drive for my X230t. But according to the Lenovo manual, they don't recommend using it as a boot disk:

If your computer is equipped with both a hard disk drive and an mSATA solid-state drive, you are not
recommended to use the mSATA solid-state drive as a bootable device. The mSATA solid-state drive is
designed and developed for the “cache” function purpose only. If you use the mSATA solid-state drive as a
bootable device, its reliability is not guaranteed.

Is this just Lenovo trying to get out of the support headaches this might cause for them, or is there actually a real reason not to do this?

Cheers!

LB_BlueVue wrote:I'm thinking of getting an mSATA drive for my X230t. But according to the Lenovo manual, they don't recommend using it as a boot disk:
If your computer is equipped with both a hard disk drive and an mSATA solid-state drive, you are not
recommended to use the mSATA solid-state drive as a bootable device. The mSATA solid-state drive is
designed and developed for the “cache” function purpose only. If you use the mSATA solid-state drive as a
bootable device, its reliability is not guaranteed.

Is this just Lenovo trying to get out of the support headaches this might cause for them, or is there actually a real reason not to do this?

Cheers!


I use it boot a BackTrack 5.2 (now 5.3) that used to run off USB.
Personally, when I run Windows 7 directly from the mSATA port or use it as turbo cache, the differences aren't even noticeable on an anecdotal basis.
The Windows Experience score and drive benchmarks will document improved performance....but the improvement is similar to a high pitched sound that only a dog can hear and I personally can't discern.

I compare it to the impatient Middleton BIOS users who insist on ramjamming their T61's to SATA II and they insist they're getting screaming improvements the way a percentage of the population rrepeatedly insists they got a good deal after overpaying for something.

OK, so SSD's aren't magic.
But the question I asked is if there is a legitimate reason NOT to use an mSATA device as the boot drive. I would still like an answer if anyone knows.

But to your point, the main reasons I'm interested in using an SSD in the mSATA slot are:
A) physical shock tolerance (It's a tablet)
B) increased capacity (2 drives is better than 1!)
C) increased reliability (I travel for work; I could recover to one drive if the other fails and hopefully keep working)
D) increased battery performance (the tasks I need the tablet on battery for can all be run off the SSD)
E) performance increase from 2 separate drives serving separate file types. (lower seek times, SSD or not)

LB_BlueVue wrote:OK, so SSD's aren't magic.
But the question I asked is if there is a legitimate reason NOT to use an mSATA device as the boot drive. I would still like an answer if anyone knows.

If there is a legitimate reason, I haven't seen anyone here posting any experiences that would back up that reasoning. I hadn't heard about Lenovo's non-recommendation before installing my Crucial mSATA as a boot drive, but I don't know why it would be any less reliable as a boot drive than an HDD (which has its own reputation of unreliability, limited though it may be).

I'm very satisfied with the performance of this Crucial 128gb mSata and glad I switched the OS to it from the HDD. (I did a clean install of W7 from recovery discs, and erased the recovery partition afterward.) WEI score for the drive is what others here have reported: 7.8. Boot-up is about 20 seconds, and hibernation is much faster compared to the HDD.

Hi,
New here on the board. Just bought a x220 tablet and wanting to put a msata 128gb drive in to it, to make it a real windows 8 compatible machine.

There's only one thing i can't seem to find out. The msata offered here in the Netherlands is CRUCIAL Interne SSD mSATA m4 - 128 GB. But i've red about msata II of msata III slots? I'm not sure if the above SSD will just fit and run fine?

azX32 wrote: SSD's aren't magic.
But the question I asked is if there is a legitimate reason NOT to use an mSATA device as the boot drive. I would still like an answer if anyone knows.

If there is a legitimate reason, I haven't seen anyone here posting any experiences that would back up that reasoning. I hadn't heard about Lenovo's non-recommendation before installing my Crucial mSATA as a boot drive, but I don't know why it would be any less reliable as a boot drive than an HDD (which has its own reputation of unreliability, limited though it may be).

I'm very satisfied with the performance of this Crucial 128gb mSata and glad I switched the OS to it from the HDD. (I did a clean install of W7 from recovery discs, and erased the recovery partition afterward.) WEI score for the drive is what others here have reported: 7.8. Boot-up is about 20 seconds, and hibernation is much faster compared to the HDD.[/quote]

I know this is a slightly older post but I just had to jump in.

Lenovo has traditionally used mSATA drives as a cache and I suspect that is the reason that they are recommending against using the mSATA as a boot drive. Many people have used the mSATA as a boot drive without issues.

Timpel_800 wrote:Hi,
New here on the board. Just bought a x220 tablet and wanting to put a msata 128gb drive in to it, to make it a real windows 8 compatible machine.

There's only one thing i can't seem to find out. The msata offered here in the Netherlands is CRUCIAL Interne SSD mSATA m4 - 128 GB. But i've red about msata II of msata III slots? I'm not sure if the above SSD will just fit and run fine?

The mSATA slot is SATA II but the Crucial mSATA will run just fine - just at SATA II speeds. That's what I am running.

Timpel_800 wrote:There's only one thing i can't seem to find out. The msata offered here in the Netherlands is CRUCIAL Interne SSD mSATA m4 - 128 GB. But i've red about msata II of msata III slots? I'm not sure if the above SSD will just fit and run fine?

If it's an mSATA SSD - Crucial or otherwise - it will fit. You do know that this goes in a slot that requires removal of the keyboard and palmrest to access, right?

ceb wrote:Lenovo has traditionally used mSATA drives as a cache and I suspect that is the reason that they are recommending against using the mSATA as a boot drive. Many people have used the mSATA as a boot drive without issues.

The quoting in your post got scrambled.

Actually, the statement from Lenovo that was posted previously in this thread cautioned that if using an mSATA SSD as a boot drive, its reliability is not guaranteed. My take on that is that Lenovo isn't guaranteeing it. And of course they wouldn't, since they don't sell any mSATA SSDs, or sell any of their laptops with an mSATA SSD pre-installed.

azX32 wrote: The quoting in your post got scrambled.

Actually, the statement from Lenovo that was posted previously in this thread cautioned that if using an mSATA SSD as a boot drive, its reliability is not guaranteed. My take on that is that Lenovo isn't guaranteeing it. And of course they wouldn't, since they don't sell any mSATA SSDs, or sell any of their laptops with an mSATA SSD pre-installed.

I'm not quite sure what happened to screw up the quote. Thanks for pointing that out.

In the US, Lenovo doesn't sell a mSATA for the x230 as a cache or otherwise so they won't guarantee performance or reliability even if you used the mSATA as a cache.. My point was that Lenovo doesn't use the mSATA as a drive in any configuration so that comment in the owner's manual is merely fluff. There is no technical reason why a mSATA drive would be less reliable as a boot device than it would be as a cache. We're both saying the same thing.

If it's an mSATA SSD - Crucial or otherwise - it will fit. You do know that this goes in a slot that requires removal of the keyboard and palmrest to access, right?

Jep, thanks for the comment. I watched this vid: http://youtu.be/xQ48LTWo9CI and don't think it will be a big problem to do this job. That is, if the install on the tablet version is similar to this one?

Hello to all,

I purchased a ThinkPad E420 in August. The base configuration was a Core i5 2450, 6 GB RAM and a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD. I have upgraded it with 16 GB RAM and a Crucial M4 256 GB mSATA drive. The E420 mSATA slot is SATA III enabled and this machine is now lightning fast! The installation was a breeze, I just plugged the M4 in and booted from the recovery discs and deleted the recovery (Q) partition. As a bonus my laptop is quieter, lighter and the battery life has been increased by at least 30 minutes.

My cold boot times were around 35-40 seconds to the desktop this has dropped to under 20 seconds to a usable desktop.

The Windows (7) Experience scores:
Processor: 7.0
RAM: 7.5
Graphics: 6.4
HDD: 7.9

I understand that the E420 was the low end of the ThinkPad series but at a price of $830.00 ($980.00 with 3 yr warranty), including all upgrades it is a fantastic bargain. The ThinkPad was the best laptop purchase that I have made.