Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

Discuss the ThinkPad-branded Yoga
Post Reply
Message
Author
bwsb
Freshman Member
Posts: 99
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:33 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#1 Post by bwsb » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:58 pm

Hi Thinkpads Forum,

This is to report the successful installation of a 110mm PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD ("22110" form factor) into the Thinkpad X1 Yoga 2017/2:nd edition.

This might be the first ultralight laptop with an internal 3.84TB SSD in the world.

This SSD was purchased as a special order from Samsung via Span, https://www.span.com/product/Samsung-SS ... -SSD~68196 , and at the time of purchase I did not realize it's 110mm. Lucas at Span was very helpful in helping me source and ship the SSD.

https://imgur.com/a/BYWJHBU - halfway through installation

https://imgur.com/a/6Rw6FnX - installation complete.

(Photos are found on mirror here https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X ... -p/4181426 )

The installation was made as follows: The laptop features only a screwing hole at 80mm, and to complicate matters further, the motherboard has electronics on the far side of the screw hole.

To offset this, i put a 1mm thick heatsink padding on the empty area between the M2 socket and the screw hole, this way providing a pushing force outward for the case that the SSD would have a pressure shock toward the motherboard. Note that the cut is made so that the padding fits into empty space, there is no padding over neither screwing hole nor electronics on the far side, here the SSD is located directly to the screwing hole, upper side of some socket, and the black plastic film under which there's some electronic components.

Next, I installed the SSD, and next, added one more layer of heatsink padding, to offset physical shock - this padding faces the laptop's bottom cover.

The heatsink padding is sticky and in itself serves excellently to keep the SSD in place, like a cheese is kept in place in the middle of a butter sandwhich.

Finally, I fixed the SSD additionally using 0.012 inch/0.30mm thick fishing line, expectably manufactured from Spectra aka Dyneema aka UHMWP material, which has a couple percent elasticity, and is temperature proof for continuous operation up to 250 fahrenheit = 120 centegrades. I got the http://www.maximafishingline.com/products/ultragreen/ at a local fishing store. The fishing line is fixed in very narrow holes on the SSD that exist on its far side.

This mod makes the laptop approximately 1mm thicker due to pressure of the leftmost ~35mm of the SSD plus thermal padding, to the bottom cover.

This can only be observed from the outside if looking very carefully.

I expect any physical pressure on the SSD's chips, PCB and solder to not shorten its lifetime, if there would be any problems at any point I'd share it here.

BWSB

jdrou
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 670
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: Madison Heights, MI

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#2 Post by jdrou » Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:57 pm

Nice find; didn't realize you could actually get drives in 22110 form factor. Looks like a good price too for that capacity.
Current Thinkpads:
X31, X40, X61T, X61, X201, X220 (i7 IPS), W520 (FHD), T440p (FHD),
T480 (QHD)
Dells: Latitude C840, Precision M70, Precision M4400, M6400 (WUXGA), M6600, M6700, 7730, XPS 13
Daily driver: MS Surface Pro 7 (i7)

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#3 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Thu Feb 21, 2019 5:21 pm

jdrou wrote:
Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:57 pm
Nice find; didn't realize you could actually get drives in 22110 form factor. Looks like a good price too for that capacity.
It's still over 1000$...heck I don't even spend that much on entire computers.
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

jdrou
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 670
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: Madison Heights, MI

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#4 Post by jdrou » Mon Feb 25, 2019 6:15 pm

Thinkpad4by3 wrote:
Thu Feb 21, 2019 5:21 pm
jdrou wrote:
Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:57 pm
Nice find; didn't realize you could actually get drives in 22110 form factor. Looks like a good price too for that capacity.
It's still over 1000$...heck I don't even spend that much on entire computers.
Not many people need that kind of storage in a small laptop but if you do it's good that it's available. In 2.5"x7mm drives you can get a 7.68 TB Micron SATA SSD from NewEgg for $1437.
I've looked at these large drives but I don't see myself needing more than 1 TB in a single laptop drive anytime soon.
Current Thinkpads:
X31, X40, X61T, X61, X201, X220 (i7 IPS), W520 (FHD), T440p (FHD),
T480 (QHD)
Dells: Latitude C840, Precision M70, Precision M4400, M6400 (WUXGA), M6600, M6700, 7730, XPS 13
Daily driver: MS Surface Pro 7 (i7)

bwsb
Freshman Member
Posts: 99
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:33 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#5 Post by bwsb » Tue Feb 26, 2019 1:27 am

This 3.84TB drive is the highest volume M.2 form factor SSD in production today as far as I'm aware.

2.5" factor offers up to 11TB in NVMe apparently, but the price tag is very high - the "9200 ECO", https://www.micron.com/-/media/client/g ... .pdf?la=en . The 7.84TB 2.5" SATA drive you mention is way more reasonably priced.

Disk space needs differ between people right.

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#6 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Tue Feb 26, 2019 8:18 am

bwsb wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 1:27 am
This 3.84TB drive is the highest volume M.2 form factor SSD in production today as far as I'm aware.

2.5" factor offers up to 11TB in NVMe apparently, but the price tag is very high - the "9200 ECO", https://www.micron.com/-/media/client/g ... .pdf?la=en . The 7.84TB 2.5" SATA drive you mention is way more reasonably priced.

Disk space needs differ between people right.
The need for 7+ TB in a laptop seems kinda ludicrous...but seems like a cool concept.
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

w0qj
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1187
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:53 pm
Location: Hong Kong

Re: Thinkpad mod success report: A 3.84TB 110mm SSD in the Thinkpad X1 Yoga's 80mm M.2 slot

#7 Post by w0qj » Fri May 17, 2019 11:48 am

bwsb, can you confirm that there was no need for any BIOS hack/MOD to enable your X1 Yoga to recognize your 22110 sized 3.84TB SSD?

If so, then we may to be faced with much larger capacity SSD for our recently purchased ThinkPads!

Imagine a (bleeding edge priced) 4 GB 2280 sized SSD in 2 years time, or a 8 GB 2280 sized SSD in 4-5 years time ;)

And some of us folks have ThinkPads which can fit in two (2) 2280 sized SSD ;) ;)

(In which case we definitely won't sink the funds into a 1 TB SD card as "additional storage" for our X1 Extreme 1st Gen [X1E1] !)
Daily Driver: (X1E3) X1 Extreme 3rd Gen | mobile broadband (WWAN)
Current Thinkpads: X1E3 | X1E1 | X1C10 | X1C9 | X1C4 | X1C3 | X230
Retired Thinkpads: X250 | T410 | T42 | 560 (circa 1996)

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad Yoga”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 27 guests