Thinkpads Forum

I just discovered that not only does my new T520 not have USB 3, but I can't put in an adapter, because there is no ExpressCard slot.

Is it possible to get such a slot installed now? And since such a combination would apparently be no faster than USB 2, is there another way to install USB 3 on the T520?

Are you sure there is no expresscard slot? I am not aware of that being optional on the T520. It should be on the right side of the laptop, to the left of the dvd-drive, and right above the SD card slot. There is a dust cover that you push in and it clicks out. It uses the express card 34 slots.

You could also add express card slots with a docking station.

jayton4 wrote:Are you sure there is no expresscard slot? I am not aware of that being optional on the T520. It should be on the right side of the laptop, to the left of the dvd-drive, and right above the SD card slot. There is a dust cover that you push in and it clicks out. It uses the express card 34 slots.

My mistake. I'm referring to 54mm slots. There are numerous USB 3.0 adapters that size. I have one that is flush rather than hanging out of my laptop 2 or 3 inches and has 2 connectors side by side in the 54mm. I have one and read that there was faster throughput with Expresscard than going to a USB 2.0 adapter which gains you no speed.

Of course it wouldn't be an issue if Lenovo had put USB 3.0 on the T520.

There are single port USB 3.0 cards that are flush mount in the 34mm size.

Startech ECUSB3S1
Targus ACA34USZ
SIIG JU-EC0212-S1

What types of devices are you connecting that need high speed? If it is external hard drives, esata is another excellent solution.

jayton4 wrote:There are single port USB 3.0 cards that are flush mount in the 34mm size.

Startech ECUSB3S1
Targus ACA34USZ
SIIG JU-EC0212-S1

What types of devices are you connecting that need high speed? If it is external hard drives, esata is another excellent solution.

Yeah, external drive. It seems most makers are making tera drives in USB 3.0 only. Which does make sense I guess.

Thanks for the tips. I can't really tell from the specs - do you happen to know if any of these work without having to plug an external power source into it? One says that you don't need one for a drive plugged into it, but not whether the adapter itself requires extra power. With 850ma supplied to a drive, I doubt the adapter itself is powered off the Express card slot. May as well not have a flush card if you have a dongle hanging off it.

How fast is esata? I guess I need to try to study up on esata. I usually can't gather or remember details from reading since I had an early stroke. If you know of a readme that isn't full of techno-babble I'd like to hear of it. But normally, people who know tech have no clue about writing without pouring out endless buzz words and details.

Take the above question. How fast is esata? Has anybody ever written a street English answer to that; one with a skimming, plain English overview comparing high speed interfaces? It's either a sales pitch or a technical treatise.

JimL wrote:Yeah, external drive. It seems most makers are making tera drives in USB 3.0 only. Which does make sense I guess.

The terabyte drives are not USB 3.0 only, as they are backwards compatible with the USB 2.0.

JimL wrote: May as well not have a flush card if you have a dongle hanging off it.

You would have had this same issue with the Expresscard 54 that you already have. There may be some drives with lower power requirements that would not need additional power.

JimL wrote: How fast is esata? I guess I need to try to study up on esata. I usually can't gather or remember details from reading since I had an early stroke. If you know of a readme that isn't full of techno-babble I'd like to hear of it. But normally, people who know tech have no clue about writing without pouring out endless buzz words and details.

Take the above question. How fast is esata? Has anybody ever written a street English answer to that; one with a skimming, plain English overview comparing high speed interfaces? It's either a sales pitch or a technical treatise.

I apologize for the techno babble and buzzwords.
For a traditional style spinning hard drive, (the type found in those 1TB external drives you see) the maximum transfer rates they can produce can go as much as 100 MB/sec.

USB 2.0 has a bandwidth limit of somewhere around 28 MB/sec. So all USB hard drives have been limited to the speed of the bus rather than the the speed of the drive itself.

With either an eSATA or USB 3.0 connection, you eliminate that bottleneck and allow the drive to perform to its full potential. So basically eSATA is the same speed as USB 3.0 when it comes to external hard drives. It starts getting more complicated when you throw in the speeds associated with solid state drives.

There are some enclosures that have both eSATA connection for data and USB for power. Vantec makes very good quality enclosures. Buy the hard drive separately.

Another option for T520 owners is the UltraBay III 2.5" Hard drive adapter. You can drop a 2.5" hard drive in that and swap it back and forth with your DVDRW drive. The ultrabay also does not create any slowdown on the drive.

The terabyte drives are not USB 3.0 only, as they are backwards compatible with the USB 2.0.

>> Would you be satisfied with USB 2.0 speeds on a 2 or 3 tera drive? With all the junk they cram onto today's systems, even fast machines slow down.

JimL wrote: May as well not have a flush card if you have a dongle hanging off it.

You would have had this same issue with the Expresscard 54 that you already have. There may be some drives with lower power requirements that would not need additional power.

>> Are you saying _all_ USB 3.0 adapters have to be powered from an external source?

With either an eSATA or USB 3.0 connection, you eliminate that bottleneck and allow the drive to perform to its full potential. So basically eSATA is the same speed as USB 3.0 when it comes to external hard drives. It starts getting more complicated when you throw in the speeds associated with solid state drives.

>> Great. That gives me a starting point on esata. And something like 4X between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. The "Superspeeds" are currently about the same.

Another option for T520 owners is the UltraBay III 2.5" Hard drive adapter. You can drop a 2.5" hard drive in that and swap it back and forth with your DVDRW drive. The ultrabay also does not create any slowdown on the drive.[/quote]

I'll try to remember that.

JimL wrote: >> Would you be satisfied with USB 2.0 speeds on a 2 or 3 tera drive?

Well yes. I have been satisfied with USB 2.0 hard drives of that size for almost two years now. Only occasionally when I need to backup a whole drive will I pull out my eSATA adapter. Unless you have the need to move lots of data quickly and frequently, I think it is completely unnecessary at this point. If I worked in a professional field such as audio/video production, engineering, etc. that required moving large amounts of data on a daily basis, I would definitely get the laptop with the USB 3.0 built-in. For backing up my pictures, music, movies, etc., USB 2.0 is satisfactory.

JimL wrote:With all the junk they cram onto today's systems, even fast machines slow down.

You got that right! There is a way to fix this problem however. Hard drives are VERY SLOW by their very nature. What I did was drop in a Corsair Force GT 120GB solid state drive in place of my T410's original 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi drive to handle all that crammed junk they put on there. The speeds I get with that are around 260 MB/sec. Because of the different levels of SATA, and your computer being a T520, you would see speeds over 500MB/sec with such a drive. The computer is quieter and much calmer now without that 7200rpm thing whirring up. Plus, battery life is improved by a good bit. I could not recommend one more. The Patriot Pyro SE is another good one. I got the Ultra Bay adapter on ebay for about $11 to put the Hitachi in and it works great swapping into the DVDRW bay when needed. Now the speed of my T410 is just absolutely sick!

JimL wrote:
>> Are you saying _all_ USB 3.0 adapters have to be powered from an external source?

No. Many USB 3.0 devices have their own power source or require very little power to operate, such as flash drives. Both Expresscard 34 and Expresscard 54 use the exact same connector, and have access to the same resources. Some devices use USB 3.0 as a charging source, such as Tablets. The USB 3.0 spec allows for up to 25 watts of juice to pump through, which requires a power source of some type. It all depends on the device's requirements if the adapter needs an external source.

JimL wrote: >> Great. That gives me a starting point on esata. And something like 4X between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.

Basically yes, technically no. That should read "something like 4X between USB 2.0 and the top speed of the traditional spinning hard drive." There are some USB 3.0 devices that go much faster than USB 2.0 X4.

JimL wrote:The "Superspeeds" are currently about the same.

I think superspeed is another word for USB 3.0.

JimL wrote:With all the junk they cram onto today's systems, even fast machines slow down.

You got that right! There is a way to fix this problem however. Hard drives are VERY SLOW by their very nature. What I did was drop in a Corsair Force GT 120GB solid state drive in place of my T410's original 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi drive to handle all that crammed junk they put on there. The speeds I get with that are around 260 MB/sec. Because of the different levels of SATA, and your computer being a T520, you would see speeds over 500MB/sec with such a drive. The computer is quieter and much calmer now without that 7200rpm thing whirring up. Plus, battery life is improved by a good bit. I could not recommend one more. The Patriot Pyro SE is another good one. I got the Ultra Bay adapter on ebay for about $11 to put the Hitachi in and it works great swapping into the DVDRW bay when needed. Now the speed of my T410 is just absolutely sick!

jayton4,
I have been trying to swap the original 500GB HDD on my T520 with a Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD without success. The only way I can boot from the SSD is by using it in the Ultrabay adapter (ThinkPad Serial ATA Hard Drive Bay Adapter III).
Any idea why it would not boot on the internal SATA connector? Thanks

The main reason why it will not boot is because there is a special 100MB boot parition that Windows is putting on your other drive. You need to reinstall the OS when the SSD as the only drive connected to the internal connector.