Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I have a brand new T400s with an SSD drive with abt. 125GB storage space. I guess I underestimated how much space is already taken by Rescue & Recovery, OS and basic applications I have installed for daily use; I am already looking for options on how to expand my storage space. The laptop has an express card slot and a serial ultrabay slim. Can I replace my dvd drive with a hard drive in the ultrabay? Is this something I can fairly easily swap back and forth when needed? I'd appreciate information on considerations and options.

Thanks!

tbar2112 wrote:Hi,

Can I replace my dvd drive with a hard drive in the ultrabay? Is this something I can fairly easily swap back and forth when needed? I'd appreciate information on considerations and options.

Thanks!

Yes and yes.

HD caddy is http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... EB5B2B986E

Fits an official Lenovo drive with the mesh sleeve best - but any bare drive seems to fit OK. I use the mech sleeve part from an old broken T40.

tbar2112 wrote:Hi,

I have a brand new T400s with an SSD drive with abt. 125GB storage space. I guess I underestimated how much space is already taken by Rescue & Recovery, OS and basic applications I have installed for daily use; I am already looking for options on how to expand my storage space. The laptop has an express card slot and a serial ultrabay slim. Can I replace my dvd drive with a hard drive in the ultrabay? Is this something I can fairly easily swap back and forth when needed? I'd appreciate information on considerations and options.

Thanks!

An Ultra Bay hard drive is wonderful to have! I would not own a laptop without a second drive capability. If you do not use a hard drive password, then the hard drive in Ultra Bay is hot swappable. (A hard drive password would require a cold start each time you swap the drive)

By the way, I notice that you have a SSD on your new machine. Would it be inconvenient to check and see if Prefetch and Superfetch is disabled out of the factory? Enable/disable is done within the Registry. Just look for "EnablePrefetcher", and both pre and super will show up in the same section. Also, is Superfetch disabled in Services, too?

The reason I ask is I'm new to solid state drives, and nobody online seems to really have very good answers about proper settings. I also assume defrag is disabled for the C:\ drive (SSD)

Many thanks!

mgo wrote:

tbar2112 wrote:Hi,

I have a brand new T400s with an SSD drive with abt. 125GB storage space. I guess I underestimated how much space is already taken by Rescue & Recovery, OS and basic applications I have installed for daily use; I am already looking for options on how to expand my storage space. The laptop has an express card slot and a serial ultrabay slim. Can I replace my dvd drive with a hard drive in the ultrabay? Is this something I can fairly easily swap back and forth when needed? I'd appreciate information on considerations and options.

Thanks!

An Ultra Bay hard drive is wonderful to have! I would not own a laptop without a second drive capability. If you do not use a hard drive password, then the hard drive in Ultra Bay is hot swappable. (A hard drive password would require a cold start each time you swap the drive)

By the way, I notice that you have a SSD on your new machine. Would it be inconvenient to check and see if Prefetch and Superfetch is disabled out of the factory? Enable/disable is done within the Registry. Just look for "EnablePrefetcher", and both pre and super will show up in the same section. Also, is Superfetch disabled in Services, too?

The reason I ask is I'm new to solid state drives, and nobody online seems to really have very good answers about proper settings. I also assume defrag is disabled for the C:\ drive (SSD)

Many thanks!

Hi, I am unfamiliar with Vista and will replace it with Win7 as soon as I can; thus, you may have to give more instructions on how I can find the values for you. I did find out that in registry, enableprefetcher has a value of 3 and enablesuperfetch also has a value of 3. In service, superfetch has a status as Started. Couldn't find out about defrag!

awolfe63 wrote:

tbar2112 wrote:Hi,

Can I replace my dvd drive with a hard drive in the ultrabay? Is this something I can fairly easily swap back and forth when needed? I'd appreciate information on considerations and options.

Thanks!

Yes and yes.

HD caddy is http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... EB5B2B986E

Fits an official Lenovo drive with the mesh sleeve best - but any bare drive seems to fit OK. I use the mech sleeve part from an old broken T40.

Thanks! I assume I need to buy this frame and then fill it with any harddrive of the proper size. It looks like this will be the solution for my music

tbar2112 wrote:[of 3. In service, superfetch has a status as Started. Couldn't find out about defrag!

Thanks for looking up about prefetch and superfetch. It helped me. Defrag is found by going to Start, and typing defrag in the field. That will start the defrag program. Most likely you will find the C:\drive, (SSD) is de-selected by default, unless Lenovo allows it do run despite having a solid state drive.

And by the way, Windows 7 looks and behaves much like Vista, but is much faster and has a smaller footprint.

I wonder whether you could tell me how much space left on your SSD after installing the OS and basic applications (what are these basic applications?). I am thinking to buy a T400s with 128GB HD for the sake of speed, but your post makes me worry about the space issue.

And do you find the T400s as slim as you expect, or it is as thick as T42/T43/T60. What about the weight?

You should have over 100MB left after the OS and pre-installed applications. Most people only need more than that to store lots of media (music/Games/Photos/Video). 100GB is plenty for dozens of applications and hundreds of thousands of documents. Of course some people (including me) need more for work - but I think that's pretty unusual.

mgo wrote:

tbar2112 wrote:[of 3. In service, superfetch has a status as Started. Couldn't find out about defrag!

Thanks for looking up about prefetch and superfetch. It helped me. Defrag is found by going to Start, and typing defrag in the field. That will start the defrag program. Most likely you will find the C:\drive, (SSD) is de-selected by default, unless Lenovo allows it do run despite having a solid state drive.

And by the way, Windows 7 looks and behaves much like Vista, but is much faster and has a smaller footprint.

Defrag seems to be enabled, when I select "Select Volumes" it is checked as all the aother volumes and partitions are.

nomoreno wrote:I wonder whether you could tell me how much space left on your SSD after installing the OS and basic applications (what are these basic applications?). I am thinking to buy a T400s with 128GB HD for the sake of speed, but your post makes me worry about the space issue.

And do you find the T400s as slim as you expect, or it is as thick as T42/T43/T60. What about the weight?

I had between 30-40GB left after installing all of the OS and application updates, MS Office 2007 (a few GB of mail included here), Adobe Acrobat Prof and an HP printer suite. I'll go for another disk in the Ultrabay.

I upgraded from a T60, I have to say I the difference in weight and thickness is significant. I really like its the modified keyboard as well. I am sure you can find the hard numbers on this forum. So far I am very happy. One issue I have is with the trackpoint which I use instead of the touchpad. I have to push the middle very hard to have the scrolling mode appear and stay. This was much lighter on the T60, it's a nuisance. It might be a keyboard issue with my system though. So far I would recommend this system, but I can't report on its ability to stand the test of time...

awolfe63 wrote: HD caddy is http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... EB5B2B986E

Fits an official Lenovo drive with the mesh sleeve best - but any bare drive seems to fit OK. I use the mech sleeve part from an old broken T40.

Will it take an SSD?

Good question. I think it will. My SSD shipped from Lenovo today - so I will update when it arrives.

miketoro wrote:

awolfe63 wrote: HD caddy is http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... EB5B2B986E

Fits an official Lenovo drive with the mesh sleeve best - but any bare drive seems to fit OK. I use the mech sleeve part from an old broken T40.

Will it take an SSD?

Yes it will. Some solid state drives are thinner than a standard drive, and can come with an adapter to allow it to mate with the contacts in a machine (or in Ultra Bay) but if not, a simple cardboard shim will suffice to raise the drive to proper level.

My non-scientific experiments with a SSD in Ultra Bay did not show much of a speed improvement over a good single platter mechanical drive. (maybe 10% faster) The real speed benefits come with the solid state drive with the operating system and program files installed on it. For example, if I want to play a .AVI file on the Ultra Bay mechanical drive, the operating system on the SSD starts that file almost instantly, even though it is on a machanical drive.

tbar2112 wrote:
I had between 30-40GB left after installing all of the OS and application updates, MS Office 2007 (a few GB of mail included here), Adobe Acrobat Prof and an HP printer suite. I'll go for another disk in the Ultrabay.

I upgraded from a T60, I have to say I the difference in weight and thickness is significant. I really like its the modified keyboard as well. I am sure you can find the hard numbers on this forum. So far I am very happy. One issue I have is with the trackpoint which I use instead of the touchpad. I have to push the middle very hard to have the scrolling mode appear and stay. This was much lighter on the T60, it's a nuisance. It might be a keyboard issue with my system though. So far I would recommend this system, but I can't report on its ability to stand the test of time...

I am very surprise to hear that you only have about 30~40GB left after installing all these. Now I have to debate whether I should get a 250GB regular drive. Would you feel a huge difference in terms of speed between SSD and regular drives? Anyone else have some thoughts on this issue?

As for the trackpoint, maybe you can adjust the sensitivity of it so that you don't have to push this hard, or you have tried that already.

nomoreno wrote: I am very surprise to hear that you only have about 30~40GB left after installing all these. Now I have to debate whether I should get a 250GB regular drive. Would you feel a huge difference in terms of speed between SSD and regular drives? Anyone else have some thoughts on this issue?

As for the trackpoint, maybe you can adjust the sensitivity of it so that you don't have to push this hard, or you have tried that already.

The number is approximate, it may also be 40-50GB. Anyway, a significant portion was gone. I could've freed up more by disabling hibernation, etc. My exact consideration was if the speed/space tradeoff was worth it. I consulted an experienced Lenovo-vendor, and they thought the difference was significant. I now tend to agree, I feel that I/O is very fast (even thought I do not have a comparable benchmark). I am adding another 500GB in the Ultrabay slim, and it's not all that expensive.

As for the trackpoint issue, it's not the trackpoint but the middle button. I don't knoe of any way to adjust sensitivity on that one.