Thinkpads Forum

I bought the T460s with the minimum hard drive (128GB M.2 SSD) and plan to install a 512GB replacement. What is the best software to accomplish this, seeing that I would have to save a disc copy to an external drive and then reinstall?

I haven't worked with drives on a chip before. I thought it would have a 2.5" 7mm drive -- as does my X220 -- for which I have an external enclosure.

kpevav wrote:I bought the T460s with the minimum hard drive (128GB M.2 SSD) and plan to install a 512GB replacement. What is the best software to accomplish this, seeing that I would have to save a disc copy to an external drive and then reinstall?

I haven't worked with drives on a chip before. I thought it would have a 2.5" 7mm drive -- as does my X220 -- for which I have an external enclosure.

Note that you can also get USB enclosures for M.2 drives.

jdrou wrote:

kpevav wrote:I bought the T460s with the minimum hard drive (128GB M.2 SSD) and plan to install a 512GB replacement. What is the best software to accomplish this, seeing that I would have to save a disc copy to an external drive and then reinstall?

I haven't worked with drives on a chip before. I thought it would have a 2.5" 7mm drive -- as does my X220 -- for which I have an external enclosure.

Note that you can also get USB enclosures for M.2 drives.

Yes, I found those on Amazon.
One question: is this SATA drive a "B" or "M" or "M+B" drive?

So are the only 1TB M.2 SSDs Sata III and not PCIe-NVMe?

kpevav wrote: One question: is this SATA drive a "B" or "M" or "M+B" drive?

You'd probably need to google the model number to check it. Either get it from device manager or possibly look at the drive itself.

jdrou wrote:

kpevav wrote: One question: is this SATA drive a "B" or "M" or "M+B" drive?

You'd probably need to google the model number to check it. Either get it from device manager or possibly look at the drive itself.

From what I can tell, this is "B" type.
Samsung MZNLF128HCHP-000L1

kpevav wrote: From what I can tell, this is "B" type.
Samsung MZNLF128HCHP-000L1

That looks like a SATA drive; pretty sure that should work in any enclosure designed for M.2 SATA drives. PCIe drives would probably use a different enclosure. Not sure if you can replace your M.2 SATA with M.2 PCIe; supposedly someone was able to do that with an X1 Yoga so possibly you can. If so you may want to get an enclosure to match your new drive rather than the old one (or get both).

The original T460s was returned because of a defect, before I ever ordered the replacement SSD.

The original T460s had a Samsung MZNLF128HCHP-000L1 drive.

The new one also has the 128GB SSD, but this one reads:
SAMSUN MZNLF128HCHP-000 SCSI Disk Device
This seems to be a Samsung 871 drive.

Are these M.2 SATA drives also SCSI drives? I am a little confused.

I also would like guidance as to whether this Crucial drive is going to work in the T460s.
CT500MX200SSD4

kpevav wrote: The new one also has the 128GB SSD, but this one reads:
SAMSUN MZNLF128HCHP-000 SCSI Disk Device
This seems to be a Samsung 871 drive.

Are these M.2 SATA drives also SCSI drives? I am a little confused.

The SATA standard incorporates some aspects of the older SCSI standard and some drivers/devices show up as "SCSI" in device manager. Definitely won't see any SCSI in a modern system unless it's a server using SAS (Serial-Attached SCSI) and those will probably show "SAS" in device manager.

I also would like guidance as to whether this Crucial drive is going to work in the T460s.
CT500MX200SSD4

That should be fine.

Regarding 1 TB M.2 drives there don't seem to be any PCIe/NVMe available yet, just M.2 SATA (and mSATA). Note these 1 TB drives all seem to use TLC flash memory right now which some people don't like.


Also, in case you haven't seen it:
http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool%5CSys/P ... ations.pdf

Thanks for the information and the chart.

I just noticed that the configurator for the Thinkpad P50 allows you to select two 1 TB PCIe SSDs (presumably M.2) plus a spinning drive so they may be generally available in the near future.

EDIT: 1 TB PCIe is also available on T460s for that matter.