Adding caddy+ssd to w500 - Sata\Sata II compatibility?

[K-a-M-u-Z-u]

Hi.
Thinkpad W500 4058-CTO, Windows 7 Sp1 X64, 320gb 7200 HDD.

As i rarely use the cd drive i have decided to add a second SSD upgrade to my system as the main OS drive.
i'm planing to buy the intel X-25(40gb or 80gb) and i'm bit confused:
the SSD is SATA II.
the ultrabay caddy is SATA.

1.will all work together?(Sata+Sata II)
2.as i plan to put the OS on the SSD, i'm planing to switch places with the HDD.(putting the SSD internally while putting the 320gb HDD in the caddy - so i could hot-swap to the cd drive if i'll have to) - is it possible? i mean, SATA II into the W500.
3.i have seen intel X-25v and intel X-25m. which one is better? are there any big difference in Value for money as a performence drive for OS?

any help or suggestion will be appreciated.

[Q-Ball]

To answer your questions:

1.) Yes, it will. It's not like that hard drive's fast enough to saturate even an SATA I link.

2.) Yes, that will be possible, and is your best option at that.
You'll have to eject the 320GB hard drive to install the DVD drive, though, so installing a program from optical media to the 320GB hard drive will be difficult.

3.) Are you looking at these drives new, or used? Both those drives are far out of date. But to answer your question to the letter, the X25-M is faster than the X25-V since it's got physically more chips inside- you can access more data in parallel with more chips, which makes it faster.


Since you're using a W500 (with SATA II), there's no benefit to buying an SATA III SSD: unless you can see yourself buying another, SATA III-capable machine in the future, which then makes that a good idea since you'll have future upgradeability then.

I'm assuming your price range is about 170 bucks: here are some recommendations.

I don't think 40 GB is going to be enough for you, if you are going to require the 320 GB hard drive to be attached.
So I'd look at either 60 or 80 GB.

It's impossible not to recommend the OCZ Solid 3 60 GB, since it's a.) an SATA III SSD (so moving this to a computer that has SATA III will have it go twice as fast) and b.) cheaper than every other 60 GB drive that's only SATA II. It can be found for about $125 on sites such as Newegg.

You do lose a bit of formatted capacity compared to 60 GB drives that use 34 nm flash, but you gain a faster SSD down the line.


Getting up in capacity, though, I'd recommend the Corsair Force F90 drive. It's, well... about 100 GB, it's got better 34 nm flash, but it won't gain speed in an SATA III machine. It's about $160.


After that point, though, the 120 GB model of the OCZ Solid 3 again takes my recommendation. It's got the same pros and cons that the 60 GB model of this drive has, and it costs $195 after rebate. (Side note: the Agility 3 is 15 bucks more for a bit faster speed down the line).


The reason I'm suggesting SATA III SSD's is just because they are, interestingly enough, very close in price to their SATA II brethren, and perform just as well.


And if you absolutely must have Intel, I'd pick up an 80 GB or 120 GB Intel 320 ($174 and $220, respectively) for that. You lose quite a bit of raw speed, especially in writes, compared to any SandForce drive, and you're using 25 nm flash with no speed increase on an SATA III link, but the 0.5% failure rate is nothing to sneeze at either.

Mind you... you have a greater chance of that hard drive dying on you than any SSD for that matter: but SSDs don't give you warning of failure the same way hard drives do. They (sometimes) just turn up dead when you go to power on the machine unlike hard drives which usually don't fail as silently.

[K-a-M-u-Z-u]

thanks, that was really impressive response.

I'm new to that idea, i have mentioned the intel SSD. if and you are saying its a crap, i'll think i'll buy the OCZ.
that newegg.com looks great, but i dont live in the us, and i couldn't find info about international shipping.(does they do intl'?)

i'm not planing to buy a new computer, so SATA III is not that appealing to me. do you have any recommendations for SATA II drives? i'll go 100gb.
i have seen on ebay OCZ VERTEX, AGILITY, ONYX - i am very confused.
thank you very much for the help

[K-a-M-u-Z-u]

I have bought the OCZ vertex 2 120gb at 185$

thanks for the help

[rambo47]

Let us know how installation goes. This is an option for me as my current drive is only 160GB.

[K-a-M-u-Z-u]

OK, got the ssd and the HDD caddy installed.

i had a few problems transferring my old windows to the new drive(I didnt want to do a clean install because i had fine tweaked allot of stuff, and i thought it will be pain in the ... to do it all again).but eventually i was able to get around the problems in not so complicated manner.
as i mentioned, i wanted to switch the HDD with SSD. and put the hdd in the ultrabay.
at first, i had a problem installing the ssd.the original thinkpad w500 hdd caddy didnt fit exactly with the SSD+caddy+side rubbers, but it fit fine without the caddy and just with the side rubbers.
Phase one, complete.

as i mentioned, i had a 320gb hdd and i have bought a 120gb ssd.
at first, i freed up some space on the 320gb drive so i could to a complete drive cloning using norton ghost 15. FIRST MISTAKE
the cloning went fine(took 90 min to complete), and i have rebooted the system, windows came up, but when i got to the login screen, my trackpad and trackball didnt work(external mouse did work) and so the letter typing (the keyboard itself worked, i just couldnt type letters).the on screen keyboard didnt start at all.i have tried to connect and external keyboard, and it didnt worked either.
good thing i had the password recovery key on a usb, so i was able to login.
Phase two, complete

windows came up NOT GENUINE and was very unresponsive.
i had start looking for a solution on the net, and figure out what was my first and second mistakes...

1.i didnt transfer the Hdden system volume.(there is trick to do it right, look in other articles)
2.I did free up space on the hdd so it will fit the SSD, but i didnt shrink the volume.
while cloning, norton took the free space and cloned it as well, so at a point, the ssd lost alignment.so the solution is to SHRINK the HDD via MANAGE and DISK MANAGEMENT.
so i have try to do it, but for some reason, the HDD wont SHRINK its free space,not more than 88 mb(i did disk error check).
I read that defragmentation could be the problem, but i just didnt want to do it and figure out that it wasnt the problem.
So I was stuck,tired, and very unhappy...
after allot of reading, its possible, but i have decided that its too much pain in the ... to clone HDD to SSD
Phase three, FAILED

A New Hope
so i have decided to try something else, and it worked:
I'll do a clean install, install all the programs i had, and copy all the programs data from the old drive on top of the new installations.
Installing on the SSD is very fast, so its easy to finish it quickly.
for MOZILLA(FIREFOX and THUNDERBIRD) i used MOZBACKUP.
for every other program i had to look if that program had any data stored in these places:
\PROGRAM FILES\
\PROGRAM FILES(X86)
\USERS\*user name*\AppData\LOCAL\
\USERS\*user name*\AppData\Roaming
\ProgramData\
and i just copy to the same place on the ssd overwriting the clean installed program.and it just worked for everything.
Almost every program i have opened, worked exactly as it worked on the old HDD all with the same tweaks and settings.

Notes
*Most of the articles say that its better to do a clean install on ssd, because windows will turn on\off some special tweaks for ssd instead of hdd.its possible to do it manually.
*I disabled the Virtual memory paging(also on my old computer).i have 8gb of ram, no need for VM that wear down the SSD.
*All the problems i have had before regarding (lenovo's) drivers(WWAN, ati's control panel) are working like a charm now.
*I had to do some changes to the libraries locations(Defult Downlod, music, pictures location to the HDD in the ultrabay)
*I didnt had time to do tests, but the drive is VERY fast.windows boot in 19-20 sec and ready to work.installations go in a jiff and all the programs start very fast.
*I created a windows backup image on my HDD, and created a small 200mb hidden booatble partion containing window 7 repair disc, so i could recover windows with ease.(my very own recovery partition...)

Q-Ball, thank you very much for the help on the right configuration.

[kovalus]

to: K-a-M-u-Z-u
Does your SSD Vertex 2 work in sata2 or sata mode?

[K-a-M-u-Z-u]

to: K-a-M-u-Z-u
Does your SSD Vertex 2 work in sata2 or sata mode?

i'm not sure, here is HD TUNE info:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/F ... directlink

UDMA mode 5 is marked as active.i dont have clue if that supposed to be like this.
Here is a benchmark:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/K ... directlink
It seems to work at sata 2 speed...right?

[Harryc]

Yes, anything over 150MB/s would be running in SATA2 mode.

[kovalus]

Excellent!
It will work with max performace. I found on some forums: W500 has SATA1 and i was worried.
Interesting detail: in my country Vertex 2 120GB, it cost ~600PLN = ~210USD .
Thanks for answers!

[thitiv]

Check this picture http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7 ... =711683446
I just disassembled my Ultrabay HDD tray for T500 & W510 today. It is nothing but a pass-thru converter.
There is no other electronic components on the PCB!