T400 questions, system board replacement, possible upgrade??

[DerCribben]

Both of those drives are in the ballpark of the Kingston that I am looking at. I was reading that people are having issues with Crucial SSD's saying steer clear for now. I suspect you know what I'm referring to, have they corrected the issues they were experiencing?

[ajkula66]

Both of those drives are in the ballpark of the Kingston that I am looking at. I was reading that people are having issues with Crucial SSD's saying steer clear for now. I suspect you know what I'm referring to, have they corrected the issues they were experiencing?

If in doubt, just go with Extreme Pro...it will be money well-spent.

Anandtech had this to say:

All in all, the Extreme Pro is the only no compromise high-end SSD in the market (aside from the Extreme II, of course). Its performance is unmatched by any other SATA 6Gbps drive and it is the only truly high performance SSD with proper power management, making it perfect for mobile use as well. It's also the first high-end SSD in 1TB-class capacity, so there is no longer a need to choose between performance and capacity. As long as you can live without hardware encryption support, I am comfortable with saying that the Extreme Pro is currently the best SATA 6Gbps SSD in the market for users who seek the highest performance with consistency.

source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8170/sand ... 0gb-review

My personal experience with these drives can only be described as stellar. As always, YMMV.

[jaspen-meyer]

0.5 GB of data, 3 GB of programs, 20 GB for system.

Will you be able to squeeze everything onto a 480 GB drive?

[DerCribben]

Haha, well played, and point taken. But I'm not sure how long I'll be using this laptop or what it's performance is going to be, who knows, this swap to 8GRAM, and an SSD might be a drastic enough improvement that this computer will become a lot more central in which case it might end up with all of my music on it, and a lot of other stuff too. Point being, if I got the smallest SSD to be of use, it would definitely be a waste of money to buy a bigger drive later when I wanted more space. Also, if this laptop ends up going away at some point, then it would be nice to have a great, fast, drive large enough for whatever else I wanted to put it in. I'm not the guy who always shoots for the biggest, fastest thing but I'm not trying to scrape by on the least either. I'm happy with a good, solid buy that will serve my needs for a long while, both known and unknown.

That being said, I just noticed they are giving away a 32gig flash drive with that Extreme Pro on Newegg...choices choices....

[jaspen-meyer]

The T400 has a great keyboard and the machine is built as solid as a steamliner.

One larger disk is one way to do it. Another way is to have lots of littler disks.
Smaller disks has the advantage of being able to keep one in every machine without spending much money.
I switch between machines depending on my mood and couldn't afford to have a $150 drive in every machine.
Today, for example, I'm programming on a 15 year old x22 with 384 MB of ram and 5.6 GB of diskspace used.
It too has a terrific keyboard, and it's fun! It's like taking my wife's sister out for a chocolate sunday and a drive in matinee.

[DerCribben]

See I've got one laptop, and one desktop. And I agree, I really love the way this computer is laid out and it's a very solid machine! I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs with an SSD.

[DerCribben]

So I decided to go with the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB, it's a 2.5" x 7mm, I pulled out my factory Travelstar 7K200 and measured it, it's 2.5" (2.75") x what looks like 9mm but I guess that is 9.5mm. Am I going to need an adapter sled for this? Or will the rubber rails that are on my current drive work for my new one?

If all goes well, this comprooter should be screaming fast by Sunday, limited only by my internet connection.

Gotta say I'm pretty stoked.

[RealBlackStuff]

Just for future reference, if less space and/or less money is required, try a Zotac Premium MLC 240GB or 480GB SSD.
Reviews:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7418/z ... index.html
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/zotac-pre ... ve-review/
Available e.g. here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820016002
http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Premium-Edi ... B016NY7UUO

I have tried a few, and I must say they work great!

[ajkula66]

And the EVO that you're looking at is another TLC-based drive...

[bit_twiddler]

The Phison controllers seem to be reliable, unlike SF.
The Linux folks believe that that only the Intel and Samsung drives
based on the SF controller are reliable enough to be used.
The same vulnerabilities would show up in Windows, it's just that
we have actual bug reports on Linux.

I have a couple of MyDIgitalSSD BP4 msata drives that are holding up.
I haven't had them long enough to be able to testify to their
long-term durability, but the company has a good reputation as far as
getting firmware fixes out.

[DerCribben]

Just for future reference, if less space and/or less money is required, try a Zotac Premium MLC 240GB or 480GB SSD.
Reviews:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7418/z ... index.html
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/zotac-pre ... ve-review/
Available e.g. here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820016002
http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Premium-Edi ... B016NY7UUO

I have tried a few, and I must say they work great!

I had already bought the Samsung when I posted my earlier comment. I might find that after going SSD on my laptop that my desktop will be too laggy to deal with and be in the market again at which point I'll be researching options again. That'll definitely be a 1TB drive though, if so.

And the EVO that you're looking at is another TLC-based drive...

I've been reading about TLC vs MLC for days, trying to get to the bottom of SSD technology and I find most of the TLC wary reviewers were reviewing back in 2014 or earlier. I've also been seeing a number of writers talking about Samsungs newer 3D TLC "V-NAND" and how it addresses a lot of the issues that plagued the original TLC drives and how more and more people are choosing them as their go to enterprise drives. I had a long talk with a friend of mine in Finland who's in the industry and entirely sold on them who was saying that for the price, speed, and capacity, and all the newer endurance the V-NAND architecture brings, why would I pay more for a drive that performs worse. He also made the point that even if the issues were still exactly as they were, that the people experiencing those issues were running server farms with massive read/write loads and that by the time this drive failed under my usage, for $149 shipped, the drives available for replacement would be so far beyond what is available now that whatever I got for another $149 at that point would more than pay for itself and cover the cost and usage I got out of this drive. But the issues aren't the same, so what's holding me back. You have to admit he makes a good point.

Read the W7 Forum to find out how to speed up fresh installs and/or updates, and many other options.
One file you MUST download from Lenovo is the T400 Chipset file.
FPR will never get installed on my machines, if it ever goes wrong, you're screwed.

New drive and memory will be here today. So I'll be starting the whole fresh drive process again. This time with an actual new drive. Just to be sure, regarding the T400 chipset file. When I wiped my original drive during the install process last time did it wipe that too or was there some little system partition that you can't wipe that retained it since it was a factory drive? I guess what I am getting at is, will there be a detail that will differ this time since it's an actual fresh hard drive rather than just a full format on the original drive?

Oh yeah, and worthy of note, the fingerprint reader drivers and program got installed when I ran Thinkvantage SystemUpdate and just let it load the drivers and programs it thought were appropriate, and the stupid thing still doesn't work. I mean, it runs, but it wont actually even let me load my prints into it during the setup process. I actually haven't been able to get the fingerprint reader to work right from some point a few months after I got it, well before the rain issue that caused the real issues with this machine. I'm just going to write it off as a loss. I don't like my biometric info to just be sitting there on a HD waiting for me to get hacked and it to just be out there anyway.

[ajkula66]

You have to admit he makes a good point.

Not to me, because these are not my primary concerns when it comes to TLC-based drives. Having said that, you've already bought the drive and I wish you the best of luck with it.

[jaspen-meyer]

Your machine'll fly with the evo 850.

The biometric data isn't likely on your hard drive.
It gets written to a chip on the motherboard and can, I assume, be erased from within bios.
Click F1 during startup and navigate to the 'security' section.
Change as necessary and then save and exit but clicking F10 and answering yes, save changes and exit.

[TonyJZX]

I'm amused when enthusists talk about SSDs because they seem to think their stuffing around on their $50 laptop requires the best in the market... get a samsung evo 850 or a sandisk extreme pro professional... really? For a T400?

Realise you are using this on a laptop that came out where George Bush was still in... pre GFC... that has a sata 2 connection.

I have used a whole slew of SSDs from Intel Extreme to Samsungs to the cheapest Sandisk Plus. Then look at the forum section you're in where the newest laptop is a T420.

I see no point in buying top spec SSDs for these kinds of units. I'm on a T400s right now that was $49.95. It has a Samsung 840 left over from an upgrade. Its fine.

If you're building a desktop that is using in PS or devwork or gaming then yeah... go full out and get that top spec ssd but for you avg. use... why bother? I have Thinkpads with the sandisk plus, ultra and ultra 2 ssds in them and although they would bench different, in the real world they operate the same and I dont expect the mtbf to be very different.

[ajkula66]

For a T400?

Yes. Even for a T61.

Realise you are using this on a laptop that came out where George Bush was still in... pre GFC... that has a sata 2 connection.

We all know that. However, the consistency is important regardless of connection type.

I see no point in buying top spec SSDs for these kinds of units. I'm on a T400s right now that was $49.95. It has a Samsung 840 left over from an upgrade. Its fine.

If it's standard 840 and not Pro...thanks but not thanks. Different users define "fine" differently.

in the real world they operate the same and I dont expect the mtbf to be very different.

With all due respect, "operate the same" varies a lot depending on one's needs. Don't presume that because you're OK with 840 - the drive with *known and proven* issues that were never resolved - that everyone else should jump on the same boat. MTBF is not a primary concern. Never was.

[TonyJZX]

With all due respect, I'm not running the ISS with this $50 T61. If the SSD burns to the ground I will rma it under the 3yr warranty knowing my data is fine on a nas.

I'm certain you guys feel like you're doing really important Nobel winning stuff with your T400s and your 'consistent' premium ssds on a half speed interface...

[brchan]

Getting a solid SSD even for a SATA II machine is still a good idea. Sure, the sequential read/write operations will be bottlenecked by SATA II for almost any ssd today. However, the random read/write operations probably won't (though some are starting to). And since random read/write is used quite often, there can still be a noticeable increase in performance. I certainly felt it when I went from a Samsung 840 PRO to a 850 PRO. Was the difference huge? No, but still pretty significant. Depending on what the user does, the gap can be even bigger.

[ajkula66]

I'm certain you guys feel like you're doing really important Nobel winning stuff with your T400s and your 'consistent' premium ssds on a half speed interface...

Which just goes to show that you have absolutely zero clue about the problems that I was referring to previously.

Write speeds on older data falling down to HDD levels on a SSD - proven on both standard 840 (never addressed by Samsung) and 840 EVO (addressed with questionable outcome) - is unacceptable regardless of interface and/or work that one does.

BTW, you don't know what members who contribute to this forum use their ThinkPads for so kindly refrain from presuming that you do. Thank you.

[DerCribben]

Your machine'll fly with the evo 850.

The biometric data isn't likely on your hard drive.
It gets written to a chip on the motherboard and can, I assume, be erased from within bios.
Click F1 during startup and navigate to the 'security' section.
Change as necessary and then save and exit but clicking F10 and answering yes, save changes and exit.

So far, so good! I'm stoked. I opted out of installing the fingerprint scanner, it just seems to be a neat gadget that I wont need. It was neat when I first got this back in 2008, never had one before but outside of high security government or corporate protection usage I don't think there will ever be anything on this that would warrant biometric security measures.

I'm amused when enthusists talk about SSDs because they seem to think their stuffing around on their $50 laptop requires the best in the market... get a samsung evo 850 or a sandisk extreme pro professional... really? For a T400?

Realise you are using this on a laptop that came out where George Bush was still in... pre GFC... that has a sata 2 connection.

I have used a whole slew of SSDs from Intel Extreme to Samsungs to the cheapest Sandisk Plus. Then look at the forum section you're in where the newest laptop is a T420.

I see no point in buying top spec SSDs for these kinds of units. I'm on a T400s right now that was $49.95. It has a Samsung 840 left over from an upgrade. Its fine.

If you're building a desktop that is using in PS or devwork or gaming then yeah... go full out and get that top spec ssd but for you avg. use... why bother? I have Thinkpads with the sandisk plus, ultra and ultra 2 ssds in them and although they would bench different, in the real world they operate the same and I dont expect the mtbf to be very different.

I've absolutely noticed a major improvement in my T400 since installing this drive, I'm sure I would've felt the same drastic improvement with a cheaper drive too. I've mentioned before in this thread that I don't tend to buy the most expensive thing going, but also don't buy the cheapest. I like to buy a solid, high quality product that's going to stand the test of time and still be useable at a later date for something else. I chose the EVO because spending $90 on something that will be worthless to me later rather than $149 on something that is top quality that I would be happy to put in any future build seems like far more of a waste than buying a SATAIII drive and installing it in a SATAII notebook. 8gigs of RAM and this SSD has turned this rather expensive computer I bought when it was screaming fast and haven't been able to use since until I just rebuilt it into a great, serviceable machine that I'll be able to get plenty of use out of for years to come.

You have to admit he makes a good point.

Not to me, because these are not my primary concerns when it comes to TLC-based drives. Having said that, you've already bought the drive and I wish you the best of luck with it.

Right, well I guess I meant you have to admit he makes a good point regarding MY situation and usage.

Getting a solid SSD even for a SATA II machine is still a good idea. Sure, the sequential read/write operations will be bottlenecked by SATA II for almost any ssd today. However, the random read/write operations probably won't (though some are starting to). And since random read/write is used quite often, there can still be a noticeable increase in performance. I certainly felt it when I went from a Samsung 840 PRO to a 850 PRO. Was the difference huge? No, but still pretty significant. Depending on what the user does, the gap can be even bigger.

Exactly