I want to put in a mSATA drive in w530

[frankparisi]

I just purchased a W530 3920XM, 16GB, 250GB SSD. It is slow as dirt, slower than my T520 in some categories because the non-factory SSD in it is the worst CNET ever reviewed. I want to put in a mSATA drive. I don't do much with my computers, mostly internet and occasionally DVD's.
A couple questions:

1. Should I buy used? Is there a life span on mSATA drives like in a mechanical drive?

2. Which mSATA drives should I buy? I want above average quality, but no need for cutting edge technology.

3. I have the factory system disks from Lenovo, I would like to install the Win7 OS and recovery partition, but I haven't ever been able to get RnR reinstalled since my T43P. LOL. Which by the way was the best laptop I have ever owned, and as you can see from my signature, I have owned a few.

4. Since most of what I do is Mozilla Firefox should I put that on mSATA?

Do my questions sound like I don't know what I am talking about? Of course I don't, I was software salesperson for 27 years, salespeople don't know anything. LOL. THANKS!

[RealBlackStuff]

The general mSATA advice seems to be Samsung 850 Evo, followed by Crucial MX200.
Buy new, you never know how a used one has been (mis)treated.
If you install from Recovery disks, fine, but don't keep the recovery partition.
It's outdated and includes all the Lenovo bloatware.
When installation is finished, delete that recovery partition.
Now shrink the main-partition C: until you have at least 15-20% free at the end of that partition.
That space is for over-provisioning.
As for life-expectancy: 10-75 years, depending on work-load.

[Pokrzept]

Well I made some research lately and decided to go for Plextor M6MV. It is fast and power efficient, and what's more - fairly cheap. I have no clue what kind of SSD you have in your W530 at this moment, but please do remember that xx20 and xx30 series have an SATA-II port connected to mSATA slot, so whatever you get it will be limited to 3 Gbps speed. If you really want to improve disk I/O performance I'd recommend to reconsider your options and than invest your money into good 2,5" SATA SSD + HDD caddy for the HDD installed in the primary disk slot.

[frankparisi]

but please do remember that xx20 and xx30 series have an SATA-II port connected to mSATA slot, so whatever you get it will be limited to 3 Gbps speed. If you really want to improve disk I/O performance I'd recommend to reconsider your options and than invest your money into good 2,5" SATA SSD + HDD caddy for the HDD installed in the primary disk slot.

That seems to make sense although I do wonder why some fairly knowledgeable people use that strategy, but if 3 GPS is top speed that is no good. So which 2.5 SATA SSD should I get?

Thank you for both of your posts. Yes the Samsung 850 evo looks good and seems to be a favorite here.

[RealBlackStuff]

2.5" SSD: Sandisk Extreme Pro.

[frankparisi]

Realblackstuff looks like a perfect choice. Thanks friend.

The 240GB seems to use considerably less power than the 500GB and 1000GB.

Power usage (idle) 5.5mW 19mW 19mW
Power usage (read | write) 2.7W | 2.6W 2.7W | 3.5W 2.9W | 3.6W

[ljuvtliv]

Hey

Id just like to chime in that ive had my 60Gb mushkin atlas value(MKNSSDAT60GB-V) since i bought it in 2013
ive used it as the boot drive for every laptop ive had from then. Currently in my W530,
Power on count: 2852,
Power on hours: 15498 hours.

SSD life left is at 69%(That's the wear i think)
I also have four 120Gb Samsung 840 SSD drives from 2012 that are all still alive and well.

As long as they're not intentionally going for planned obsolesce by making new drives fail faster then you've basically got an SSD partner for life with the sandisk.

Also i havent noticed sata 2 on the W530 affecting me vs sata 3 and with an Msata ssd you can put 3 drives total in the machine.

[kfzhu1229]

I have a TOSHIBA THNSNJ256GMCU 256GB SSD (bought 2 months ago, as gently used for CAD$60) inside my T530i. This is some of the extreme bargain that you can get for this laptop as I am sure any of the RAM (Got for $90 open box), FHD display ($95 used) or CPU ($180 i7-3720QM engineering sample from Taobao) cost more than that. Glad that I got the upgrade as it saves me from buying another laptop for another 4-5 years.

[Dragunov]

I just purchased a W530 3920XM, 16GB, 250GB SSD. It is slow as dirt, slower than my T520 in some categories because the non-factory SSD in it is the worst CNET ever reviewed. I want to put in a mSATA drive. I don't do much with my computers, mostly internet and occasionally DVD's.
A couple questions:

1. Should I buy used? Is there a life span on mSATA drives like in a mechanical drive?

2. Which mSATA drives should I buy? I want above average quality, but no need for cutting edge technology.

3. I have the factory system disks from Lenovo, I would like to install the Win7 OS and recovery partition, but I haven't ever been able to get RnR reinstalled since my T43P. LOL. Which by the way was the best laptop I have ever owned, and as you can see from my signature, I have owned a few.

4. Since most of what I do is Mozilla Firefox should I put that on mSATA?

Do my questions sound like I don't know what I am talking about? Of course I don't, I was software salesperson for 27 years, salespeople don't know anything. LOL. THANKS!

I have a MyDigital, Super boot 2, mSATA drive in a ThinkPad x131e. Bought new off Ebay for $49. Seem to run fine,with pretty decent performance.

I also have one of their M.2 drives (240gb) in my W540. I payed $60, new off Ebay. This runs really well. Had it in my T440p, until I rebuilt my W540. I use it as an image store, and have my TEMP file routed there. We'll see how long it lasts, but so far, so good.