Thinkpads Forum

Any suggestions for the SSD to put in the T420s. I've had good luck with Samsung, but I'm not wedded to that brand. I've been looking at this Samsung MZ-75E250B/AM, and the prices seem reasonable.

How much space do you need and how much are you willing to spend?

I'm generally not all that keen on Samsung offerings so I'd likely recommend something else, but would need the info first...

Looking for 250 and near or under $100.00 if possible. The Samsung I mentioned is just under $100.00 at Amazon and others.

For ten bucks more, a proper MLC drive that I've personally used and loved every second of it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... gnorebbr=1

Your money, your call.

Another MLC option at the $100 price-point is the Crucial MX200 :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX200-250 ... 1436587568

The Crucial BX100 at the $90 price-point is also well-liked :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX100-250 ... 1436589470

The latest version of the Crucial "Storage Executive" toolbox has a "Momentum Cache" feature which is similar to the Samsung "Rapid Mode" .... and it works with both the BX100 and the MX200.

MLC NAND vs. TLC VNAND ... at the same price point with similar Toolbox functions ... now there's a discussion topic.

Do you want an MSATA drive for the WWLAN slot or for the main 7mm 2.5" drive slot?

Is there an advantage to one or the other? I'll use the drive as the main source; any add on would be either in an optical drive caddy or USB external.

You can use the WWLAN for a MSATA SSD drive but the bus is SATA II. Your main drive slot is SATA III. So you can have two SSD's and keep your optical ultra bay port.

I've got an mSATA Crucial M550 in the WWAN slot on my T420 and I kept the platter disk in the 2.5" bay. Performance is good, price was good (I paid $106 for it new a few months ago), and I've got "cheap" storage to minimize the 'dead space' using up cells on the more expensive SSD. For my needs it's a good compromise.

Many simply need the best performance they can get though when installing an SSD, and the SATA-II interface limitation on speeds in the mSATA slot is counter-productive for it being their OS/boot drive. If that's the case I'd say get a fast 2.5" SSD and if you need more space, add an mSATA SSD to dump stuff on if you need the optical drive (rather than a SATA bay adapter for another SSD or platter disk).

GACrabill wrote:Another MLC option at the $100 price-point is the Crucial MX200 :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX200-250 ... 1436587568

While I haven't tried it myself, Anandtech was less-than-impressed with it...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9258/cruc ... -review/11

The Crucial BX100 at the $90 price-point is also well-liked :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX100-250 ... 1436589470

The latest version of the Crucial "Storage Executive" toolbox has a "Momentus Cache" feature which is similar to the Samsung "Rapid Mode" .... and it works with both the BX100 and the MX200.

MLC NAND vs. TLC VNAND ... at the same price point with similar Toolbox functions ... now there's a discussion topic.

I like Crucial/Micron drives and have several of them in daily use. However, BX100 is a clear step down from the (still available) MX100 specs-wise and the MX200 seems to over-promise and under-deliver. I'd stay with the well-proven MX100 if I were buying a Crucial SSD today.

ajkula66 wrote:I like Crucial/Micron drives and have several of them in daily use.

Have you installed the newest version of Crucial Storage Executive and enabled "Momentum Cache", and then used CDM to see the performance differences ?

Very interesting reading :
http://www.crucial.com/wcsstore/Crucial ... _cache.pdf
[Supported SSDs : M500, MX100, M510, MX200, M550, BX100, M600, M500, M500DC, M550, M510DC, P400M; Supported Operating Systems : Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit)]

CDM results (Toshiba-L750_Crucial-MX200-250GB) with "Momentum Cache" enabled :

ajkula66 wrote:... the MX200 seems to over-promise and under-deliver. I'd stay with the well-proven MX100 if I were buying a Crucial SSD today.

After reviewing the BX100 so positively, the reviewers were indeed underwhelmed by the MX200 ... they did not expect to get the same SSD as the MX100 with only one new feature (Dynamic Write Acceleration).

From thessdreview.com : "Crucial has introduced a new feature with the MX200, Dynamic Write Acceleration. DWA dynamically changes the NAND’s operation from MLC mode to SLC mode and allows SSDs with only two NAND packages to achieve 500Mb/s write speeds. Additionally, by using DWA the endurance has improved significantly bolstering a rating of 320TBW."

There's no good reason to ignore the MX200 ... it is better than the MX100. And, with "Momentum Cache" and DWA as features, I like the MX200 better than the Samsung 850 EVO options with "Rapid Mode".

The 250GB msata MX200 is also ~$100 :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX200-250 ... 6797518011

GACrabill wrote: Have you installed the newest version of Crucial Storage Executive and enabled "Momentum Cache", and then used CDM to see the performance differences ?

Nope. I have no interest in benchmarking my RAM which is what is effectively being done with both Samsung and Crucial utilities.

There's no good reason to ignore the MX200 ... it is better than the MX100. And, with "Momentum Cache" and DWA as features, I like the MX200 better than the Samsung 850 EVO options with "Rapid Mode".

I'll agree with you on the Crucial vs. Samsung preference. As for the DWA...it does sound like an interesting feature but it requires about 1/2 of the drive to be left empty in order to run in the SLC mode. If I'm going to pay $100 for a ~120GB SSD - which is what one gets when they leave MX200 half empty - I'll spend my money on a *real* SLC drive of the same size...and yes, you can still get NOS examples if you know where to look for them.

WOW, the depth of knowledge on this forum is phenomenal, but the technology expressed in the answers to, what I thought was a simple question, has far exceeded my capacity. Judging by the answers to my query, I'm in pre-school.
I'm at best a novice with computers, and even at a lower level with laptops.
From looking at the hand-me-down T420s, I only find one place for a drive, no matter what type; yet from the responses it seems there is a way to have two, and keep the optical. What if I only want one drive? The location appears to have the same connection as my wife's T410, but is more constricted. I won't use this unit for much beyond internet and GPS travels; so I probably need minimal capacity and speed. So, I again ask, is there a recommendation for a SSD?

RRHODY wrote:yet from the responses it seems there is a way to have two, and keep the optical. What if I only want one drive?

You certainly can do one drive, but the benefit of doing the mSATA SSD is you can keep the platter drive in the main bay for storage, where speed is not as critical. I have this setup on my Dell. It's quite slick. The other benefit would the cost for a platter drive is much lower per GB than SSD. My 1TB WD Blue cost $100. A 1TB SSD will be considerably more.

RRHODY wrote:WOW, the depth of knowledge on this forum is phenomenal, but the technology expressed in the answers to, what I thought was a simple question, has far exceeded my capacity. Judging by the answers to my query, I'm in pre-school.
I'm at best a novice with computers, and even at a lower level with laptops.
From looking at the hand-me-down T420s, I only find one place for a drive, no matter what type; yet from the responses it seems there is a way to have two, and keep the optical. What if I only want one drive? The location appears to have the same connection as my wife's T410, but is more constricted. I won't use this unit for much beyond internet and GPS travels; so I probably need minimal capacity and speed. So, I again ask, is there a recommendation for a SSD?

I can understand your feeling of not getting a question answered. Basically there are a few "top" players in the SSD game right now. They are in no particular order:

1. Intel
2. Crucial
3. Samsung
4. Kingston

The Intel 730 drives are good. As are the Crucial MX200 drives, Samsung 850 Pro, and Kingston's Hyper-X line.

If it were me purchasing I would be looking at the MX200 and 850 Pro.

On target - thanks.

RRHODY wrote:WOW, the depth of knowledge on this forum is phenomenal, but the technology expressed in the answers to, what I thought was a simple question, has far exceeded my capacity. Judging by the answers to my query, I'm in pre-school.
I'm at best a novice with computers, and even at a lower level with laptops.
From looking at the hand-me-down T420s, I only find one place for a drive, no matter what type; yet from the responses it seems there is a way to have two, and keep the optical. What if I only want one drive? The location appears to have the same connection as my wife's T410, but is more constricted. I won't use this unit for much beyond internet and GPS travels; so I probably need minimal capacity and speed. So, I again ask, is there a recommendation for a SSD?

I was planning on getting a T420s myself. I ordered a 120GB next generation OCZ drive. It's a 7mm drive as opposed to the 9mm standard 2.5" SSD drives. The T420s takes the 7mm sized SSD in the main drive bay. I have several 128GB mSATA drives. I wanted to do a speed test comparison between the SATA II mSATA drive and a drive in the main drive bay using the SATA III port. The drive I ordered is the new version of the OCZ drive that has all Toshiba parts.

The 120GB will be going into my T61 drive initially but within a month or so I will probably have a T420s. Off hand the speeds on my T410s laptops are around 250mb read and 230mb write speeds with a SATA II port.

The suggestions of using a spinner/magnetic drive in the main drive bay and a mSATA in the WLAN is a very good solution.