Thinkpads Forum

Would like an SSD for a recent X201 purchase.

Looking for tried & tested rather than the latest & greatest, and prefer the drive has the power safe capacitors as I will using it mostly on the road w/ the battery only. This led me to the trusty Intel 320, which I thought would be a good match for the X201 SATA II interface.

Good choice? or are there other (faster) drives with the power save capacitors worth looking at? Will likely buy NOS/OEM etc. from fleabay as that is what my budget allows currently (AUD to USD exchange took a hit recently).

Size wise I thought 240-300Gb was good for future-proofing.

sata 2 - any ssd would do, i have a Intel 500 series on one of mine plus various samsung kingston sandisk etc. and they're all fine

xsixt wrote:Would like an SSD for a recent X201 purchase.

Looking for tried & tested rather than the latest & greatest, and prefer the drive has the power safe capacitors as I will using it mostly on the road w/ the battery only. This led me to the trusty Intel 320, which I thought would be a good match for the X201 SATA II interface.

Good choice? or are there other (faster) drives with the power save capacitors worth looking at? Will likely buy NOS/OEM etc. from fleabay as that is what my budget allows currently (AUD to USD exchange took a hit recently).

Size wise I thought 240-300Gb was good for future-proofing.

I only buy Intel SSDs but a used old drive I wouldn't buy. Check the warranty period on those drives and compare that to the mfg date. Do you have data showing the drives without power-safe capacitors fail from power outages?

When shopping for eggs and SSDs I try to buy new. Buying a SSD is like buying a go-kart which can't be refulled. Buy new and you get a full tank of gas.

Your new drive could be a 120GB S3500. Just vow to not fill it with crap.

jaspen-meyer wrote: I only buy Intel SSDs but a used old drive I wouldn't buy. Check the warranty period on those drives and compare that to the mfg date. Do you have data showing the drives without power-safe capacitors fail from power outages?

When shopping for eggs and SSDs I try to buy new. Buying a SSD is like buying a go-kart which can't be refulled. Buy new and you get a full tank of gas.

Your new drive could be a 120GB S3500. Just vow to not fill it with crap.

Thanks Jaspen - good reply.

My 1st SSD I bought a used Intel 320 300gb for a PC I don't use that much... but having thought more about it I tend to agree I should buy new if possible, especially for a PC I use more often.

I did see the 120GB S3500 going for a good price - do you think that size is big enough?

Originally I thought 240g should be minimum for Windows 7 x64, but I just don't have enough experience.

For my main PC 60gb space is used for the OS partition. I have approx of 40gb work files (I don't use all at once), and it would be good to have some music on there, so I thought 120gb might be pushing it? I understand with SSDs you shouldn't max them out for better performance.

I run Win7 on 120gb easily but I dont install heaps of stuff. I also run a nas at home so all my media files are centralised.

I run 240Gb ssd on desktops as my expectation is that I run games and bigger packages there.

Typically, Win7 has 75Gb free once I drop on Office and basic apps on a 120Gb drive.

I dont see the point buying 2nd hand. 120Gb ssds start at about $50 here. Twice that for 240Gb.

TonyJZX wrote:I run Win7 on 120gb easily but I dont install heaps of stuff. I also run a nas at home so all my media files are centralised.

I run 240Gb ssd on desktops as my expectation is that I run games and bigger packages there.

Typically, Win7 has 75Gb free once I drop on Office and basic apps on a 120Gb drive.

Thank you for this. That helps a lot. I may set up a NAS in the future, so 120gb seems reasonable if so, if not 240gb, completely on the same page.

TonyJZX wrote:I dont see the point buying 2nd hand. 120Gb ssds start at about $50 here. Twice that for 240Gb.

Now your prices - I don't agree, $50 for an SSD.... I wish! I'm talking a good MLC drive. Here are some prices (inc. postage) I have to contend with for new drives. Remember postage is killer.

Intel S3500 120gb = $120 AU [likely too small]
Intel S3500 240gb = $230 AU
Intel 320 300gb = $180 AU
Intel 320 160gb = $100 AU [possibly too small]

IIf not Intel...
Samsung 830 256gb (Dell OEM) = $120 AU [great deal but concerned about OEM, can't run samsung magician software]

xsixt wrote: Thank you for this. That helps a lot. I may set up a NAS in the future, so 120gb seems reasonable if so, if not 240gb, completely on the same page.

120GB drives are slower than their larger counterparts in most - if not all - cases. I'd say that 240GB is the barest of minimums nowadays.

Intel S3500 120gb = $120 AU
Intel S3500 240gb = $230 AU
Intel 320 300gb = $180 AU

I'm a huge fan of certain Intel SSDs - 320 being one of them - but there are other far-better-performing options out there. S3500 is really not meant to be a laptop drive. If you *absolutely must* buy an Intel SSD, 730 is the way to go. Other than that, SanDisk Extreme Pro is pretty hard to beat nowadays and is the one that usually recommend.

Happy shopping.

ajkula66 wrote: 120GB drives are slower than their larger counterparts in most - if not all - cases. I'd say that 240GB is the barest of minimums nowadays.

I'm a huge fan of certain Intel SSDs - 320 being one of them - but there are other far-better-performing options out there. S3500 is really not meant to be a laptop drive. If you *absolutely must* buy an Intel SSD, 730 is the way to go. Other than that, SanDisk Extreme Pro is pretty hard to beat nowadays and is the one that usually recommend.

Happy shopping.

Right...you've convinced me: I'm a bit disorganised when it comes to files, so 240gb minimum it is.

Will keep the Intel 730 in mind if one pops up.

SanDisk Extreme Pro 240gb = $160 AU [so yes, can afford that]

So if we're talking non-Intel, is the SanDisk Extreme Pro say a better choice reliability wise than a Samsung 840 Pro or Samsung 830? After doing some reading these were seemed to safe choice reliable drives that were non-intel, given the possibility of finding one new.

I'll eat my words here and recommend the used 160gb 320. I got an Intel X25-V in the mail yesterday. It's s.m.a.r.t. data says it's been on for 2.75 years, hasn't reported any errors. Read speeds are 280MB/s, writes ~50MB/s and latency 0.07ms.

ajkula66 wrote: 240GB is the barest of minimums nowadays.

Maybe in the land of coo-coo.
Or, perhaps, it depends on the quality of the work you're producing.
'Hamlet' is 105KB. Picasso's Maya with her doll is 93KB.

TinyCore is 15MB.


edit: What does MTBF mean to us (the end user)? The 320 specs say it has 1.2 million hours MTBF. My x25-e which I've been using since 2008 has 2 million hours.

xsixt wrote:
So if we're talking non-Intel, is the SanDisk Extreme Pro say a better choice reliability wise than a Samsung 840 Pro or Samsung 830? After doing some reading these were seemed to safe choice reliable drives that were non-intel, given the possibility of finding one new.

I'd say yes. There's nothing inherently wrong with 830 or 840 Pro, but they're getting old and therefore likely impossible to find in NOS condition.

jaspen-meyer wrote:I'll eat my words here and recommend the used 160gb 320. I got an Intel X25-V in the mail yesterday. It's s.m.a.r.t. data says it's been on for 2.75 years, hasn't reported any errors. Read speeds are 280MB/s, writes ~50MB/s and latency 0.07ms.

Writes are just...duh. But it's 4K QD 32 results that really matter in everyday use, and that drive is not going to shine there whatsoever.

Maybe in the land of coo-coo.
Or, perhaps, it depends on the quality of the work you're producing.
'Hamlet' is 105KB. Picasso's Maya with her doll is 93KB.

TinyCore is 15MB.

Well...once you've properly overprovisioned the SSD (25-30%), a 120GB drive doesn't leave all that much space especially in a system with only one storage slot such as X201.

Look, I still have Intel's X-25E SLC drives - the 64GB version - in some of my "trophy" machines that don't see heavy use...so yes, one can live with a 120GB drive if absolutely needed. However, given the minimal price difference between most 120 and 240GB SSDs nowadays, I'd always go with the larger option.

As for Hamlet, I still prefer reading the books the old-fashioned-way, in paper...

Not that it really matters that much but...

In the Linux world, only Samsung and Intel drives are sanctioned by the kernel folks.
The way that TRIM commands are generally sent on Linux is by way of a cron job
(something which is run periodically, as defined by a table), as opposed to mounting
with the "discard" flag which creates a lot of extra overhead on Linux.

Out of the box, a cron job is run (perhaps daily, I don't remember) to send TRIM
commands to any SSD, and if the vendor is not Samsung or Intel, the job does nothing.

Of the Samsung, I would stick with their MLC drives.

I have ignored this advice on my own laptops, and am running drives
from Toshiba (the Q-Pro MLC), a MyDigitalSSD BP4 (MLC), and a Micron mx-200(SLC/MLC) with
no detectable failures yet, but it's not like these are servers that actually need to be 100% reliable.

And, of course, I have no way of knowing if they are buggy, because my laptops don't have
ECC RAM or server CPUs. Someday, I'll probably upgrade to a laptop with a Xeon chip when
these are debugged, but, judging by feedback on the P50/P70, this may take a while.

ajkula66 wrote:
I'd say yes. There's nothing inherently wrong with 830 or 840 Pro, but they're getting old and therefore likely impossible to find in NOS condition.

Definitely becoming impossible. Most NOS ones are OEM - what are your thoughts on these? I know they can't be accessed by Samsung Magician, which I don't know if I should worry about...

ajkula66 wrote: Well...once you've properly overprovisioned the SSD (25-30%), a 120GB drive doesn't leave all that much space especially in a system with only one storage slot such as X201.

Look, I still have Intel's X-25E SLC drives - the 64GB version - in some of my "trophy" machines that don't see heavy use...so yes, one can live with a 120GB drive if absolutely needed. However, given the minimal price difference between most 120 and 240GB SSDs nowadays, I'd always go with the larger option.

As for Hamlet, I still prefer reading the books the old-fashioned-way, in paper...

I think that's a good point about whether it's a main/well-used/work machine or a trophy machine (esp. with an older OS). I understand also that larger SSDs/those with more space tend to work better, though I don't know about the inner workings, that reason alone seems worth not cutting it too fine with space.

bit_twiddler wrote: In the Linux world, only Samsung and Intel drives are sanctioned by the kernel folks.

Of the Samsung, I would stick with their MLC drives.

Interesting fact... very relevant though, I think many will ditch windows for linux eventually.. I'm already planning for it when Win 7 caves in and the spyware updates eventually become impossible to defend against.

Yep, definitely, only accepting MLC recommendations so far

xsixt wrote: Definitely becoming impossible. Most NOS ones are OEM - what are your thoughts on these? I know they can't be accessed by Samsung Magician, which I don't know if I should worry about...

Well, most OEM drives carry zero warranty on their own, so unless one finds them dirt cheap they seem like a questionable proposal at best...as for the Magician, I never found it to be useful whatsoever but to each their own...

I think many will ditch windows for linux eventually.. I'm already planning for it when Win 7 caves in and the spyware updates eventually become impossible to defend against.

Agreed to a large extent. My W7 machines are locked at SP1 with future updates completely disabled. With that said, by the time 2020 rolls along - presuming I'm alive to begin with - I'm certain that *nix developers will have embraced SSDs from other manufacturers...

I ran across this, but don't know anything how it works.
It looks like a way of running XP and W7 past their expiration dates
with some sort of security solution:

https://www.robolinux.org/