Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

Will the T430 (not T430s) accept standard 9.5mm height HDDs? I've read on the Lenovo forums that it will not. If it can, I assume I will need 9.5mm bumpers to put on it? If so, where could I purchase these.

Thanks

The T430, including the T430s, use 7mm drives for the main bay. You can use a 9.5mm and possibly a 12.5mm drive in the modular caddy that replaces the optical drive. You may be able to make a 9.5mm drive fit if you drop the bumpers and perhaps modify the case, but that will most likely have consequences for your warranty.

I witnessed a friend putting 9.5 mm SSD into T430s (which takes 7 mm). He used a bit more force, but otherwise there were no issues.

Had to remove the casing of a Corsair Force GT Series SSD (9.5 mm) to make it fit.
Then seated the SSD's PCB board onto the plastic padded side of the tray supplied for the original 7 mm Hitachi HDD.
Works perfectly but the SSD's warranty is like ZaZ said toast.

Hi all,

i want to share with you my POSITIVE experience in using 1 TeraByte HDD in my T430.
Yes, i read that the disk height for this laptop is 7mm. I have a 1TB spare disk and i try ...

Do not believe it ... see pic here : http://i.imgur.com/rtkhhox.jpg

Looking inside the hdd slot: the space is "huge", and in my opinion enough to fit a 9,5mm drive.

I had to solve 3 problems: extraction, insulation, connection.

The first problem to solve was hdd extraction ... if needed.
I build two little mounting tab - I cut the shutter of an old 3,5in floppy disk that is very thin metal with the right dimensions, and drilled to make an hole for the screw. See picture it's easy then explain.
The tabs are useful for hdd extraction, they are in flexible metal, they lowers when closed under the hdd plastic cover.
Second issue was to insulate the hdd electronic board - a piece of mylar film cutted in right measure.
The mylar will ease insertion and extraction sliding it better.
No problem at all with the connector - it is perfectly aligned.

At the end I cloned the drive and booted from it, all seems ok.

Last, the Temperature: after a couple of hours of standard office work it is 35°C, measured with HDDSCAN (SMART parameters).

Thank you for your attention, and Best whishes to you all !

That's the thing - a 9.5mm drive will fit in a 7mm bay, if you don't use rubber rails. But it's not optimal as far as shock absorption goes.

corvette wrote:I witnessed a friend putting 9.5 mm SSD into T430s (which takes 7 mm). He used a bit more force, but otherwise there were no issues.

Pretty sure all "9.5mm" SSDs are really 7mm; just some might have an extra spacer attached that needs to be removed.

corvette wrote:I witnessed a friend putting 9.5 mm SSD into T430s (which takes 7 mm). He used a bit more force, but otherwise there were no issues.

The previous owner of my T430 tried to put a 9.5mm HDD into the bay - broke the SATA connector on the motherboard (I guess it wasn't quite properly aligned)!

Proceed at your own risk!