T450 hard drive upgrade options?

[twister6]

Been out of the loop since my T430s, now was thinking to get T450 since I see a few good deals. I noticed Lenovo complete revamped their line up with no external optical drive for 450 (thus, no caddy option for a 2nd drive) and you need to take the whole laptop apart to get to the main hard drive (assuming 2.5" only, either 9.5mm or 7mm with an adapter?). Here is a dilemma, T450 model I was looking into comes with 128GB ssd, good to run OS but not enough storage for media files. If I upgrade it to 1TB or 2TB (dirt cheap now under $100), all these high capacity drives only come in 5400rpm flavor. I seen some 1TB with 7200rpm but only in 3.5". Fine for storage, but 5400rpm going to cripple OS and running programs.

So what are my upgrade options? Does T450 comes with mSATA and can I upgrade it, or is there just a slot for it? If it does, wondering if I can get something like Sammy 850 EVO 250GB mSATA ($92) for OS and programs, and get 1TB or 2TB for storage (any recommendations?).

What do you guys/gals think?

[ajkula66]

Does T450 comes with mSATA and can I upgrade it, or is there just a slot for it? If it does, wondering if I can get something like Sammy 850 EVO 250GB mSATA ($92) for OS and programs, and get 1TB or 2TB for storage (any recommendations?).

There's no mSATA slot on these systems, M2 only and the drive has to be 42mm one...not too many of these around, let alone in large capacities.

Get a 1TB standard 2.5" SSD for the main bay and call it a day.

[jdrou]

Best 42mm M.2 drive I've seen so far seems to be Transcend MTS400 which is available up to 512GB capacity.
Ran across some info suggesting the controller was a relabeled Silicon Motion, possibly same one as in Crucial BX100.
Got one of these for my T440p but haven't really given it a workout yet.

[twister6]

Yeah, did more research, you guys are right, no more mSATA but M.2 2242 instead. Was thinking MyDigitalSSD 256GB M.2 2242 NGFF SSD for $83 (on amazon) and Samsung Seagate Spinpoint M9T 2TB 2.5-Inch SATA for $94 (on amazon).

A lot cheaper than 1TB SSD, so dedicated m.2 ssd drive with plenty of room for OS and programs, and 2TB of storage in 2.5" slot. What do you think?

[ajkula66]

so dedicated m.2 ssd drive with plenty of room for OS and programs, and 2TB of storage in 2.5" slot. What do you think?

I'd hardly consider a 256GB drive to have "plenty of room" in today's day and age...once it's properly over-provisioned, you'll be at less than 200GB...

Having always favoured the "do it once and do it right" approach, this would be my pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Yes, a lot more money than M.2 + HDD set but performance and consistency alone would be worth it in my book.

Your ThinkPad, your money, your call.

[Pokrzept]

I do agree with ajkula66. I am going through the same problem as you and I did make some research lately. I wanted to put an 500 GB SSD in M.2 slot and an HGST 7K1000 i do allready own into 2.5" bay. And what I find out here where I live - for the price of an mid-range M.2 2242 SSD you can get 2.5" SSD that's nearly twice as big. Unfortunately SSD manufacturers almost completely ignored new standard and beside few chip options I couldn't find anything interesting available. The best one I can get in my location is ADATA SP900. So basically when I considered all pros and cons I decided to buy 2.5" SATA SSD and use an external 1TB USB 3.0 HDD when it is needed.

[Dekks]

A lot cheaper than 1TB SSD, so dedicated m.2 ssd drive with plenty of room for OS and programs, and 2TB of storage in 2.5" slot. What do you think?

Good call IMO, the HDD should be just fine for media files and the swap/tmp files for which SSDs are not ideal.

[twister6]

T450 is for my wife to replace her T400s. I think she will be more than happy with 2TB of storage for her media files and she doesn't run too many programs. I still got 4 more months before my T430s warranty expires. Then, hello to ThinkPad Yoga 460

[jdrou]

Was thinking MyDigitalSSD 256GB M.2 2242 NGFF SSD for $83 (on amazon)

I read some negative things about their controller performance (PHISON) compared to the Transcend I got. I'll try to do a benchmark test on mine this evening.

I think most laptops with M.2 42mm slots didn't intend for them to be boot drives, just cache.

[jdrou]

Test results (both on my T440p):

Transcend MTS400 M.2 42mm (empty):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.1 x64 (C) 2007-2016 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 555.663 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 457.020 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 287.267 MB/s [ 70133.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 308.181 MB/s [ 75239.5 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 545.474 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 461.611 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 39.394 MB/s [ 9617.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 98.343 MB/s [ 24009.5 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [I: 0.1% (0.1/80.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/05/24 13:33:29
OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB 2.5" (boot drive):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.1 x64 (C) 2007-2016 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 542.168 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 524.474 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 397.099 MB/s [ 96948.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 358.279 MB/s [ 87470.5 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 519.073 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 515.464 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 40.249 MB/s [ 9826.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 127.148 MB/s [ 31042.0 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [C: 79.1% (47.4/60.0 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2016/05/24 13:42:52
OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

So the Transcend actually outperforms the 840 EVO in sequential reads and other numbers are not bad either.