T430s - Micron C300 SSD Has Only One S.M.A.R.T Attribute

[Monkie]

I purchased a T430s thinkpad off ebay and the seller put a Micron C300 SSD into it (MTFDBAK128MAG-1G1). It looks to be an OEM SSD for previous generation thinkpads like T420. Running SMART utilities like CrystalDiskInfo only produces one attribute - power cycle count.

Does anyone know if this is a problem with compatibility or is the SSD supposed to show only one attribute? Googling shows some info but nothing conclusive. I've contacted Micron but still waiting for a response.

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

C300 is a very, very old SSD by today's standards and precedes T420 generation by far. A very good drive in its day, but a bit long in the tooth here and now.

It probably works just fine but I'd consider backing up anything important that you might have on it just in case.

Here's a review from its heyday (2010)

https://hothardware.com/reviews/micron- ... ssd-review

[Monkie]

Thanks for the quick reply! Would you know if this SSD is supposed to have or show the gamut of S.M.A.R.T attributes ? Even my Intel X25-M had all of them. I've also tried SmartMonTools and still only one attribute. I've even tried the Micron "Storage Executive Software" utility but that just gives an "oops something went wrong" when trying to use it.

On the lenovo forum someone had the same problem with the C400 in a T430 and a user mentioned there may be a driver/controller issue. I have not experienced any major malfunctions but I don't think I can trust the drive with my data until I clear this up.

[Dro]

The first thing you should do it's to take out the drive and check it another system, if you get the same issue then I wouldn't trust it with anything important, as ajkula66 said it's a pretty old drive so replacing it might still be a good idea eventually, if you do replace it consider an msata drive, that will leave the hdd slot free for future expansion and the possibility of a dual drive setup, a small ssd for the OS and a big hdd for your data.

[Monkie]

Glad you mentioned the msata had no idea the thinkpad will accept one. I'm still curious what could be causing the issue so I'll update you guys and maybe someone will read the thread that happens to know the exact technical reason why the C300 is only showing one smart attribute.

I hooked up the c300 to my desktop and it's not even recognized by disk management (bios does see it though). I tried to boot my desktop with it and that just messed up my network settings so badly I had to reset cmos. But I did run crystaldiskinfo and it again just showed one attribute. Desktop is windows 7 pro, the C300 is Windows 10.

Maybe this ssd was only programmed to show one attribute right from the factory?

[Dro]

Glad you mentioned the msata had no idea the thinkpad will accept one. I'm still curious what could be causing the issue so I'll update you guys and maybe someone will read the thread that happens to know the exact technical reason why the C300 is only showing one smart attribute.

I hooked up the c300 to my desktop and it's not even recognized by disk management (bios does see it though). I tried to boot my desktop with it and that just messed up my network settings so badly I had to reset cmos. But I did run crystaldiskinfo and it again just showed one attribute. Desktop is windows 7 pro, the C300 is Windows 10.

Maybe this ssd was only programmed to show one attribute right from the factory?

It's highly unlikely that this is by design, it wouldn't make sense, since you already tested it in another system it's clear that the drive is malfunctioning, you can use it for non-essential/replicated elsewhere data but I wouldn't trust it with anything important.

As for the msata it goes where the wwan is supposed to go and works like a charm, though the wwan antenna cables are a bit tricky to route properly and out of the way, if you are not planning to install a wwan card you can always remove them.