Self install T420 mSata drive

[Adamp]

Looking at the configs on the T420, mSata options are not available yet. I am new to Lenovo (was using Asus), but want a T420 with an 80GB mSata, a 750GB hdd, and the optical drive.
1) Should I have any issues buying a T420 today, and then buying the mSata myself to install?
2) How easy are Lenovo laptops to pull apart (I have upgraded my wifi card on an Asus laptop, so I am reasonably comfortable enough pulling a laptop to pieces when no easy access panel is available)?
3) Would the first batch have any bios issues with using mSata, or as this was listed as an option in specs, should it be fine to install myself?

[Colonel O'Neill]

1) Probably not, although their may be a whitelist for Lenovo branded mSATA SSDs.
2) Very easy; there are full disassembly manuals available on the website.
3) It should support it regardless of whether you ordered mSATA or not. You can add BT, change WLAN, add WWAN, add FPR, add camera, change panel resolutions, etc aftermarket on a ThinkPad and the BIOS will work with it (assuming proper parts).

[Adamp]

Thanks for info Colonel. I am going to buy the T420, and an mSata and see how I go. Given Intel seems to be the only ones with a released mSata drive, with a bit of luck Lenovo have not whitelisted their own drives.

This could be the ultimate travel laptop combination. Small enough to be portable, 30hrs battery with a spare 9 cell, and an 80GB SSD / 750gb HDD combination along with ODD.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Can't be absolutely 100% sure whether or not the mSATA will work, but it should...

[ssl]

I'm curious myself, but I dont want to tinker with putting one in. The press announcement for the X220 says rapid drive (lenovo's term for combining a SSD and spinner) will be available, so I'm wondering why it's not available for the T420 right out of the gate.

[Adamp]

I have ordered a T420, and an mSata drive, so I will report back if I am able to do it in a couple of weeks.

[davidhbrown]

Adamp, do you mean you ordered the mSATA SSD from Lenovo or from somewhere like newegg? If from Lenovo, could you share a part number? I can't find anything on their site.

[Adamp]

I ordered the mSata drive from Provantage (another newegg type store).

[davidhbrown]

Looking forward to reading about your experiences, Adamp.

It would be great if these aren't whitelisted in the BIOS. I.e., if any mSATA/SSD MiniCard will be recognized. I hope to one one of these machines for several years and wouldn't be surprised if capacities of the minicards increase well past the the time Lenovo stops selling them.

[Adamp]

Apparently my T420 and mSata drive are waiting for me at home to attempt this install. Given I ordered the drive and the custom built laptop last Friday, I am very impressed with Lenovo assembling and mailing from China within a week.

Does anyone have links to Lenovo support documents / assembly instructions to assist me in finding the PcIE slot? I have never had a Lenovo before, so I have no idea what is accessible via access on the bottom, and what I need to completely pull the laptop apart for.

[davidhbrown]

Apparently my T420 and mSata drive are waiting for me ... Does anyone have links to Lenovo support documents / assembly instructions to assist me in finding the PcIE slot? ...

Cool. I appreciate your trying it out and letting us know how it goes!

Here's a link to the Lenovo Support - Hardware Maintenance Manual Index - ThinkPad. The link for the T420 is midway down the page.

You should verify that this is appropriate to your situation, but I believe I recall people posting about putting the mSATA drive in the wireless WAN PCI Express Mini Card slot. Instructions for removing/replacing that are on page 79 of the PDF [labeled page 73]. They make *no* mention of installing a mSATA card... but since they aren't selling those configurations yet (? haven't been looking at the T420 myself), perhaps this is not surprising.

Looks like it's right next to the memory DIMM slot, so just one captive screw to remove that cover. (Unplug, remove the battery, follow ESD-safe procedures, and all that around page 10 [4] of the PDF.)

They do show "mSATA" as #32 in the Overall parts list, FRU no 45N8259 (searching Lenovo's site for that FRU does not return any hits as yet). The diagram is not helpful for locating the component; it is shown off to the side, above the slice battery.

[Adamp]

I can report that I installed the 80GB Intel mSata into the T420 and successfully installed Windows 7 x64. I do however have the following challenges;
1) I can't figure out how to get into the bios to set boot order (I removed the Lenovo drive, and replaced it with a newer bigger SATA drive, so that the system now auto boots from the mSata).
2) I don't know where to go to get the T420 drivers. Can't see it as an option on the Lenovo support site.

[davidhbrown]

No driver disk? You could try downloading ThinkVantage System Update and running it on that computer... assuming you can get the T420 online.

(If you have only WiFi, you could maybe share the Internet connection on whatever computer you're currently using over the Ethernet port.)

Thanks for the report. Good luck with the BIOS settings... there may be instructions hiding somewhere on that screen?

[Adamp]

Eventually I managed to get the drivers, and the T420 is now working perfectly. A couple of pointers for anyone looking to also buy a T420, and go the mSata route;
* I bought a T420 and then upgraded the main hdd to 750GB, RAM to 2x4GB dimms, and installed an 80GB mSata drive. Lenovo prices for upgrading any of these generic items are excessive.
1) There are access panels on the bottom of the T420 for the Hard drive, Pcie slot for the mSata, and one of the RAM modules. The 2nd RAM module is actually under the keyboard, which is a little trickier to access. Some people may find value in getting Lenovo to put in a single 4GB RAM module, so they only have to access the RAM through the slot.
2) I could not find the T420 drivers anywhere online. In order to get all drivers installed, I installed a clean version of Windows 7 on the mSata, and then re-installed the Lenovo hdd (250GB one). I then booted through the mSata, and went into the device manager. I went to manually upgrade the driver of each component, directing it to my 250GB hdd windows directory for the drivers. This successfully loaded all drivers.
3) I then ran the Thinkvantage System update.
4) The blue thinkvantage button eventually worked to get into bios. I am unsure on why I had issues with that at first.

This laptop is now very fast, has 830GB total storage, plus an optical drive, and with the 9 cell battery, windows is quoting around 9.5hrs battery life. I used to have a travel laptop and a home laptop. The t420 is going to allow me to consolidate to a single laptop for all tasks.

[Colonel O'Neill]

It's actually ~773GB if you do the whole 1024/1000 conversion .

Good to hear you got it working. Does the mSATA SSD get exposed to the computer as a distinct drive?

Do you have the discrete graphics or integrated graphics? 9.5 hours on 9-cell seems low considering it's advertised at 14 or 15 hours.

[Adamp]

You are right about the storage. I think the 750GB drive is really 698GB available storage .

The mSata appears as any other hard drive would. As it is my boot drive, it is my C: drive.

I have the integrated graphics (I don't play graphics intensive games, so would prefer the battery life).

9.5 hrs is what windows quotes when I unplug the power cord. That is without attempting to extend battery life or even actively reconfigure the battery power mode. Therefore you could probably get more time out of the battery.

This is my first Lenovo, but I have never managed to get anywhere near advertised battery times on my old Asus laptops.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Some reviewers got 12-13 hours on the X220 9-cell if I remember correctly, and that's also rated at 15 hours. I'd try to optimize power consumption anyway; not having to drain the battery below 15% or charge it above 85% helps in terms of overall longevity.

[thinkstone]

Thanks for describing your experiences - good to know that this works.
I plan to do the same with a W520 I am waiting to get.

Can you explain why you did a clean install of Windows 7 on the SSD instead of using the image on your old drive that already has all the Thinkpad drivers and settings?

Did you see an impact on boot time?
I wonder whether you still have the Lenovo boot optimizations when you do a clean install.

Also, what brand of RAM did you use for your upgrade?

[Adamp]

Boot times appear much faster, but I haven't timed them (and only booted twice from the original hdd).

Applications open instantly which is very noticeable. I had no good reason for doing a fresh install, just that I do this on all prior laptops, as the other brands come with so much bloat. I am coming from a P9800/4GB RAM machine with a 7200RPM hdd, and the T420 seems to be double the speed for day to day tasks with the mSata.

I didn't anticipate having issues finding drivers on the Lenovo site. I had just assumed I could find them all, and reinstall them easily. In hindsight, backing up the Lenovo image may be easier.

[yak]

What others mean is that the original HDD comes with a hidden partition that allows you to return your OS to the factory state. There's also an option to burn this onto a set of CDs so you could use that to clean-install the OS along with drivers onto the SSD.

You had problems finding the drivers because T420 is so new. It looks like they haven't posted them yet. Normally they should be here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... atrix.html

There's also an option to use the System Update tool which presents you with a list of drivers/utilities from Lenovo, allows you to choose what you like and finally downloads and installs them in one go. Later you can use it to keep your SW up to date.

[h36]

Thanks for the info.

I would also be interested to hear specifically what RAM and 750GB HDD you used for this upgrade. Will any 240 pin DDR3 RAM work? I assume the 750GB HDD is the WD Scorpio Black.

If you already have the SSD, what are your thoughts on going with a 7200RPM HDD, as opposed to a 5400RPM one, which might save battery life?

[Adamp]

RAM I used was the Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT2KIT51264BC1339

The 750GB hard drive was the Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT 750GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive.

Personally, I wouldn't sacrifice hdd speed for battery life on a machine like this that should have great battery life. However everyone has their own preference.

[davidhbrown]

h36, this is a little off the topic, but you typed 240-pin which is the desktop size of DDR3 DIMM. Adamp correctly typed 204-pin (SO-DIMM). All other specs are very much the same between desktop and laptop RAM, so it can be confusing. You want to make sure you get the 204-pin SO-DIMMs for a notebook.

Back on topic, it seems like the whole USA is sold out of the 80GB Intel mSATA now, with in-stock dates claimed everywhere from Friday (April Fool's Day... not sure I believe that one!) to April 24 to May 30. Saw one on eBay for $255 and thought the gouging had begun, but it turns out that seller is in the UK so it was just a Lb Sterling to $US conversion.

Think the run could be tied to the release of Lenovo's Sandy Bridge Thinkpads?

BTW, I would *not* recommend getting the 40GB even if you think it's plenty of space. Looking at the specs, the 80GB is twice as fast on writes, suggesting that they're doing a sort of RAID-0 thing right in the mSATA-to-flash bridge on the card. Worth waiting for, especially as the writes are already a lot slower than reads.

Sustained Sequential Reads

Up to 170 MB/s (40GB)
Up to 200 MB/s (80GB)

Sustained Sequential Writes

Up to 35 MB/s (40GB)
Up to 70 MB/s (80GB)

[h36]

Great, the distinction between 240-pin and 204-pin was exactly what I was trying to figure out. I should have been more clear about that.

Ordered my t420 today and looking to make these same upgrades, so hopefully we don't see a prolonged shortage of the 80GB mSATA. Alternatively, perhaps we can expect a next-generation mSATA from Intel soon, given their recent announcement of the 320 series, but I would guess that is unlikely seeing as the current 80GB mSATA was only unveiled at the end of December.

[davidhbrown]

I just (11:25pm ET Mar 31) got an email from newegg to say they had the 80GB Intel mSATA drives. (I have notification requests in with all the online shops that offered the service, but I can't say I was displeased that this one won the race.) It will almost surely be here before the machine itself, adding to the pile with the usual HDD and RAM.

[penartur]

I just (11:25pm ET Mar 31) got an email from newegg to say they had the 80GB Intel mSATA drives. (I have notification requests in with all the online shops that offered the service, but I can't say I was displeased that this one won the race.) It will almost surely be here before the machine itself, adding to the pile with the usual HDD and RAM.

Newegg is out of stock for 80GB Intel 310 again.

[MikeM]

Check this thread for a link to ALL of the current T420 drivers and downloads:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=95384

[MikeM]

Thanks to the kindness of another member of this forum, I was able to SCORE an Intel 80GB mSATA (it's on order) and am planning on doing this same thing to my W520 when it arrives.

Maybe I'll take photos and look for some place to park them on the intarwebs with links here, so interested folks can see this surgery done with a rusty butterknife and a bottle of Wild Turkey 101.

[jgrjr]

Could someone list a product number for the Intel mSATA drive that would work in the 420. I am looking at the 310 series and wondering which specific drive people are choosing for thier 420.

[MikeM]

Could someone list a product number for the Intel mSATA drive that would work in the 420. I am looking at the 310 series and wondering which specific drive people are choosing for thier 420.

This would be the unit....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product