Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I bought a new W520 last week off eBay and it arrived today.

Specced the 500GB HDD, but I want a setup with:

- 80GB mSATA (ordered off eBay too)
- 200 to 256GB SSD (instead of the 500GB HDD)

As this is going to be my primary work computer, the main thing is that the secondary SSD must be STABLE and RELIABLE. I have had experience with a OCZ Vertex Turbo 64 (died randomly in work desktop, very frustrating, but after destructive flash seems to be OK now as boot drive in home desktop) and an OCZ Vertex 120 (never any real problems save for having to destructive flash sometimes).

I am not averse to buying a slightly older model since I assume that most firmware bugs will be gone by now. So I am looking at the following (in order):

- Intel models: Given that Intel seems to be the "gold standard" for reliability etc. I am minded to go for their drives, such as the 320 or the 520, but am somewhat put off by reports of the 520 causing problems.

- OCZ Vertex 2: Since it has been out for some time. But is fit a problem?

- Crucial M4 or M300: Apparently the same controller as the Intel 510 but without the stupid warm-boot issue of the 510?

- OCZ Vertex 3: But note that it is new, and also some models are apparently slightly too big to fit in a stock W520 caddy?

Does anyone have any suggestions? Really, I don't mind it being slower than other SSDs or SATA2 only, since anything is faster than an HDD but nothing is worse than booting up to find all of the data on your SSD gone*, or the computer just not responding for whatever reason. Nor is price an issue as long as I get reliability, although of course there are limits (I'm not going to go for a US$800 SSD).

* - Even though the plan is of course to do daily backups over the network to my old desktop.

I don't know that anyone here has a crystal ball. I'd say the manufacturer with the best rep is probably Intel, but that doesn't guarantee your Intel drive won't fail. Probably the best thing you can do is to have a good backup. That way you'll be covered no matter what happens.

Yes, that's the plan.

Having done a bit more research, looks like the Crucial m4 with the latest firmware is the way to go. Otherwise the Intel 320.

Bought the 256GB m4. Guy asked if I wanted the 512GB model, but given how much I'm spending already on the W520 (and various other things this month) I thought I'd pass.

Now just waiting for my Intel 80GB to arrive and then I can do a fresh restore to that, stick in the M4, and then be good to go. All very exciting.

Excuse me for asking a dumb question, but where does one install an SDD in a laptop?

I have a W500 and an SDD would be a nice addition but I have no idea where it goes.

There's a screw to remove on the bottom and the drive should slide out. This may be of interest.

I'd recommend avoiding OCZ, after what I and many others have experienced in the way of catastrophic failure and zero help/support from customer service. Better to spend your $bucks$ elsewhere, where they're appreciated.

I'll be buying a W520 in the near future and am looking at getting one of the various Intel SSDs.

Just my $.02

Just installed Crucial M4 512GB with updated firmware 0009 in W520. Works great.

Have been running the Intel msata and Crucial m4 256gb 0009 combo for a few weeks and things seem OK so far. Sometimes the computer reboot when windows is starting but that could be a lot of things. Enjoy the speed and all-round stability though, and have set it to do hourky incremental backups to a USB3 HDD (the 500gb the machine originally shipped with) as well as hourky backup of work documents to my desktop and constant backup to Windows Live Mesh and Spideroak. Thanks all.

I would just like to comment that I have a T61p and a Z370 and in both of these, an OCZ Vertex 2E is too big to PROPERLY fit in either of those caddies, I think the SL510 I also have was OK though.

I have to say it seems a bit of a joke that either Lenovo or OCZ could foul up the form factor of such a widely used device?

I have a Samsung MZ-5PA256 256GB in my W520 and have been quite pleased with it. I think I picked it because it's what Lenovo was using as the SSD upgrade.

No problems with Crucial M4 512GB SSD Release 0009

Keep away from OCZ Vertex, I had a 80Go and it broke down twice in less than 6 months !! The support told me it's because I used the sleep/hibernate function.... I was able to get a refund after that.

I definitely recommend Intel highly as well, but a lesser-known company called OWC is where I've been getting my SSD's, and they have been nothing short of amazing. I currently run two 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD's (they are SATA III (6Gbps) drives and I think the W520 supports SATA III) in a RAID 0 configuration. My sequential read and writes are over 900MB/s on a consistent basis. One by itself gets up to around 550MB/s, which is screaming fast and if you don't want to get two, it will likely blow everything else away. I run Windows 7 natively in my MacBook Pro and the last time I needed to re-install the OS (when I got the second one from OWC), Windows 7 installed in less than 10 minutes. They also come with a (wait for it) 5-YEAR warranty, so if it breaks down on you sometime in 2016, they'll send you a new one. lol

Even though OWC is mostly a company for the Mac, many of their products are Windows-certified and work just fine with Windows 7 in my case, for example. The company has been around since 1985, so they'll be around, should you need to invoke that 5-year warranty at any point.

Hope this helps.

With all the fuss all the time about performance, peope neglect to understand the importance of reliability.

I have had Vertex2 250Gb corrupted many files. The worse thing is that it did not just die, it was worse, it randomly corrupted files and I only noticed it after I already imaged my HD as a backup with the already corrupted files in there. It as a nightmare! I can also say that I had Vertex 120gb which worked fine, but the 250Gb gave me hell. It made me lose all faith in OCZ and other 'boutique' SSD makers. I am not saying any smaller manufacturer SSD will be bad, I am just saying there a very good reason why laptop manufacturers decide to put SSDs of Intel or Samsung inside their machines rather than other more speedy solutions like Crucial, OCZ or others.

For me, I decided for the Intel 510 and I am pretty happy with it and I can sleep well at night, of course backups are always important but stll. the 510 is incredibly fast, no need for something faster if it may come at the expense of reliability.

Sleep Machine wrote:Just installed Crucial M4 512GB with updated firmware 0009 in W520. Works great.

I just purchased the Crucial M4 256GB SSD for my three month old W520 and it should arrive any day. This is my first SSD install. I plan to clone my existing primary internal hard drive and use the SSD as my primary internal boot drive. My primary internal drive has 140GB used up so I should have ample space on the M4 for my OS and applications. I have a second hard drive in my ultrabay which I use for all music/documents/video/misc. storage. I will be using a Thermalake USB 3.0 Docking station to clone the SSD.

Could you answer a couple of questions for me please. Do I initialize and partition the SSD just as I do a new Hard Drive? Can you recommend cloning software which will also align SSD for faster speeds (I read this was important on Crucial's forum). I have Acronis cloning software but read on the Crucial forum that this is not suitable. Did you update firmware before or after cloning? Any additional tips for getting the best performance out of this SSD in a W520? Thanks!

Sorry, haven't logged in for a while due to work.

1. Do I initialize and partition the SSD just as I do a new Hard Drive?

You don't have to, from what I remember it is ready-formatted. But you can if you want.

2. Can you recommend cloning software which will also align SSD for faster speeds (I read this was important on Crucial's forum). I have Acronis cloning software but read on the Crucial forum that this is not suitable.[/quote]

Sorry, not an area I can help you with, as I didn't clone the drive. I just created the factory restore DVDs, pulled out all the drives, installed the 80GB mSATA SSD, restored from the DVDs and hence the stock factory install to the 80GB, then installed the Crucial m4, which I use only as an app/data drive. Regardless, you could do the same with the Crucial drive, just pull out your Ultrabay drive when restoring to ensure that it restores to the Crucial drive, and not over your Ultrabay drive!

What software do they recommend? Perhaps best to follow that. I also thought alignment was not that important now.

3. Did you update firmware before or after cloning?

Didn't clone (see above) but I did update to FW0009 before did the above. I see no reason why you'd want to update the firmware after cloning or an install.

4. Any additional tips for getting the best performance out of this SSD in a W520?[/quote]

Not that I know of, apart from to install it in the main drive bay, which (I have read) is the only SATA 6GB/s drive bay in the machine, which is what you're doing. I'd actually appreciate any tips myself since Outlook2010 takes a while to deal with a 16GB PST file (even with the m4). However, I have accepted this as being due more to the size of the file, which is large by any measure, since the rest of the machine and all other applications works fine while Outlook is "thinking".

I had many, many problems with my OCZ Agility 3 and sleep/hibernate until the very latest firmware for the drive (2.15). Now it is rock solid.

I recommend the following to get it running most stable:
1. Upgrade the FW to 2.15 or later immediately upon receipt.
2. run the very latest Intel RST drivers, e.g. http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... tex-3-BSOD
3. Disable LPM a la http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State ... td-p/38766
4. Disable the Lenovo Airbag Protection for the drive

djones18 wrote:
> I plan to clone my existing primary internal hard drive and use the SSD as my primary internal boot drive.

That's what I was planning, but so far it hasn't worked. I tried the Norton Ghost software that came with my Samsung SSD, and I also tried Clonezilla. I ran into sizing as well as Windows 7 authentication problems. So, I recommend against using Norton Ghost, I wonder if it could do the job with the right sequence and options.

Then I tried writing recovery discs myself, and using those to restore a factory configuration. No luck yet, I got an error complaining about an .ini file not being found. So, I've requested recovery discs from Lenovo (free), and will try them when they arrive. Getting there, I'll just be persistent.

Any specific notes on Windows 7 cloning recommendations are appreciated. I don't mind using Linux distributions for this, Linux is actually preferred and installed quite easily on a little 64GB mSATA card that I plugged into my W520.

westsailor wrote:Excuse me for asking a dumb question, but where does one install an SDD in a laptop?

I have a W500 and an SDD would be a nice addition but I have no idea where it goes.

That depends on the laptop. The most universal location is to put a 2.5"-form-factor SSD in place of the usual HDD, or possibly in the ultrabay. The most recent round of Thinkpads have included mSATA capability in the mini-PCI/express slot normally used for a WWAN radio. There's a nice intro/write-up here but I'm pretty sure your W500 did not support this.

Just as a datapoint, my wife's M4 rolled over and died this weekend. I have now had failures with every major SSD mfg except Intel, which is why I went back and bought a second 510 250Gb to give me a hot backup on my W520. As for her, she is done with SSDs, and I installed a Momentus XT 750 in her W510, and I have a second one coming for her backup W510. The good news is that all of her files were backed up, bought her 2 WD Passport externals (one for home and one for school) after the last goaround. Bad news is it came down to me restoring everything and reloading programs and reupdating the computer.

Nothing but Intel (and no SF controller, at least not yet).

cheetahdriver wrote: I installed a Momentus XT 750 in her W510,

Of course the hybrid drives have had some reliability issues of their own (although I haven't had any problems with the 500 GB XT in my M4400).

The Samsung 830 256 GB SSD has worked flawlessly in my W520 thus far.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

I now have a whole pile of bricked, or unreliable SSDs, including 3 different types of Crucial (really early, C300 (2), and M4(2)) and two different types of Corsairs (both X series). None of these were in use in any sort of severe environment, my usage is what I would call fairly pedestrian business usage (ordering, spreadsheets and quite a bit of Web work). My wife's is a bit more challenging, large spreadsheets, some large set data manipulation (she is a ChEg PhD student). Neither should, however, be anywhere close to video editing or other heavy usage. All of the drives were at their current last firmware when they died. The two M4's and the one C300 should still be under warranty, but what's the point? Once judged unreliable, a repaired unreliable drive is not going to give me a warm fuzzy.

I keep them in a pile as a reminder that there are some cost savings that are illusory, and that quality lives on when that 10% savings is long forgotten.

I have no doubt that m4s fail, but so do Intel SSDs (just that their failure rate is probalby lower). However, I think it is highly likely that m4s fail less often than OCZ SSDs!

How is the M4 holding up?

I have a W520 on the way (new) with the OEM Intel 160GB drive. I will probably install a 1TB drive in the UltraBay for a datastore for vmdk and ISO files. I understand the Intel is not the fastest of the bunch, but stability is the number one priority for me. I also have an Intel 80GB in an X61 and it has been rock solid with zero issues so far.

W520 is waiting for Customs right now, but I expect it any day.

monkeybagel wrote:How is the M4 holding up?

I have a W520 on the way (new) with the OEM Intel 160GB drive. I will probably install a 1TB drive in the UltraBay for a datastore for vmdk and ISO files. I understand the Intel is not the fastest of the bunch, but stability is the number one priority for me. I also have an Intel 80GB in an X61 and it has been rock solid with zero issues so far.

W520 is waiting for Customs right now, but I expect it any day.

In my almost one year old W520, I've been using a Crucial 256GB M4 SSD. The SSD itself is several months old. It has given me zero problems and I'd purchase another one. Individual experiences like mine don't necessarilly reflect the overall reliability of this line of SSDs. So I recommend doing a bit of research before finally deciding on an SSD. I do clone my SSD every month to a 2.5 inch hard drive in case of failure. I also use Lenovo's backup software. I'm confident that I'll be able to recover quickly in case of a SSD failure.

BTW, I just upgraded from 16GB to 32GB of G-Skill RAM. Installation was easy and the RAM checks out just fine. I do alot of video editing and encoding professionally. I've noticed an overall speed increase in video encoding and editing, perhaps on the order of 10 to 20%.

djones18 wrote: I do clone my SSD every month to a 2.5 inch hard drive in case of failure. I also use Lenovo's backup software. I'm confident that I'll be able to recover quickly in case of a SSD failure.

While the restoration of my wife's unit was pretty trouble free, it took a long time because of all the program reloading. I am thinking that the cloning of the drive is the way to go, I even bought the drivebay to facilitate this. The passports make a good daily backup and a once a month cloning means that you are probably only a few hours to getting back up. Thinking of putting a 2TB drive in my K430 desktop to back up my HD and SSD in it...

My cloned 2.5 inch drive can directly replace my boot drive if the boot drive fails for any reason. It is a very fast way to get my computer back up and operating. My business normally requires this. If time allowed I'd attempt to repair my failed SSD using Lenovo and Microsoft's repair and recovery software. The downside to cloning is twofold for me: data/documents/videos/photos must be backed up between clones using Lenovo's backup software. Cloning my SSD regularly while not time consuming, takes discipline, reliable cloning software, and about an hour to accomplish. I also check my cloned drive from time to time by booting from it to make sure it works.

My Crucial M4 512gb died just before a big conference... good thing I had 1) a backup of the system and 2) a second laptop. Was running one rev back from current and was bought new from Provantage in March '12.

HDD light stays solid through boot, then the BIOS/EFI says that it can't find the boot device. Trying to find time to get the RMA started for this little bugger.