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Best HDD configuration for W530
Best HDD configuration for W530
I have a new (to me) W530 with a 500GB HDD, I7-3740QM, and 8GB RAM.
It's no slouch, but I would like to make it go faster without spending too much money.
Leaving aside a RAM increase (which I will probably do anyway), what would be the most cost-effective way to speed things up? An Msata cache drive, or replace the HDD with an SSD?
It seems a shame not to use the Msata option, but SSDs are much cheaper now than when the W530 was new, and perhaps I should consider Msata to be obsolete technology and just go for a 500GB SSD.
Any thoughts?
It's no slouch, but I would like to make it go faster without spending too much money.
Leaving aside a RAM increase (which I will probably do anyway), what would be the most cost-effective way to speed things up? An Msata cache drive, or replace the HDD with an SSD?
It seems a shame not to use the Msata option, but SSDs are much cheaper now than when the W530 was new, and perhaps I should consider Msata to be obsolete technology and just go for a 500GB SSD.
Any thoughts?
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
An SSD will definitely speed things up nicely.
I suggest a 250/500 GB Samsung 860 EVO and get a caddy for a 2nd drive to put your old 500GB HD in the CD-slot for storage.
I suggest a 250/500 GB Samsung 860 EVO and get a caddy for a 2nd drive to put your old 500GB HD in the CD-slot for storage.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.
PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine.
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.
PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine.
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
Thanks for your suggestion. I think it's the way I will go.
Cheers
Cheers
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
I second this proposal; it's a cost-effective way to greatly expand your storage needs
RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:20 amAn SSD will definitely speed things up nicely.
I suggest a 250/500 GB Samsung 860 EVO and get a caddy for a 2nd drive to put your old 500GB HD in the CD-slot for storage.
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)
Current Thinkpads: X1E3 | X1E1 | X1C10 | X1C9 | X1C4 | X1C3 | X230
Retired Thinkpads: X250 | T410 | T42 | 560 (circa 1996)
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
I went with a Samsung 860 Evo 500 Gb mSata SSD and a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in the regular HDD slot in my W530.
Since I'm usually scurrying around trying to purchase "almost-or-soon-to-be-obsolete" parts, I latched onto six Samsung mSata SSD's of varying capacities for various x20 and x30 units.
Also presently upgrading various other older Thinkpads with the appropriate adapter.... currently shoehorning one into an x41T model. (First attempt with a Startech 2.5" mSata SSD adapter and Win XP Tablet Edition works very well, except that the form-factor leaves a portion of the drive extended from the case...next to try with a 1.8" adapter.)
Regards.
Dave
Since I'm usually scurrying around trying to purchase "almost-or-soon-to-be-obsolete" parts, I latched onto six Samsung mSata SSD's of varying capacities for various x20 and x30 units.
Also presently upgrading various other older Thinkpads with the appropriate adapter.... currently shoehorning one into an x41T model. (First attempt with a Startech 2.5" mSata SSD adapter and Win XP Tablet Edition works very well, except that the form-factor leaves a portion of the drive extended from the case...next to try with a 1.8" adapter.)
Regards.
Dave
Previous & Collection Thinkpads: 701C A22m A30/A31p T23p x2 T30 T41 X31 various 750's 760's & 390's.
Test Benches: X41T, X60T & X61T's, various T42p-T43p's, x200 x201 x220T x230 T520 W530 T601F LED (X9000/8Gb/250SSD/W7 U)
DD: P50
"Life Is A Journey...Enjoy The Ride!"
Test Benches: X41T, X60T & X61T's, various T42p-T43p's, x200 x201 x220T x230 T520 W530 T601F LED (X9000/8Gb/250SSD/W7 U)
DD: P50
"Life Is A Journey...Enjoy The Ride!"
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
I would like to go the mSATA route, but mSATA drives cost much more than normal SDDs and it seems are slower. If I needed to fully max out the storage I suppose mSATA would be necessary, but as it is I think I will go for the cheaper, perhaps faster, and less expensive route of a caddy and a normal SSD.
However, if in the next year or two there are more mSATAs around than there is demand for them, the prices will fall considerably. At that stage, I will probably bite.
However, if in the next year or two there are more mSATAs around than there is demand for them, the prices will fall considerably. At that stage, I will probably bite.
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
Nope! M.2 has already taken the market segment from mSATA...and no machines come with mSATA ports anymore except for maybe the WiFi card.
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.
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.
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
I think you are confused. The fact that no new machines come with mSATA ports means that demand for mSATA drives will largely disappear. If suppliers are sitting on unsold stocks of mSATA devices, then demand will fall, and so will prices. It's basic economics.Thinkpad4by3 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 14, 2019 5:49 pmNope! M.2 has already taken the market segment from mSATA...and no machines come with mSATA ports anymore except for maybe the WiFi card.
Of course, there may not be large stocks of unsold mSATA drives, in which case prices won't fall.
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
mSATA wasn't ever really TOO popular so the chance of having large stocks in a warehouse is small. There are cheap chinese mSATA drives that you could use instead.
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.
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.
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
if it wasn't too popular then it is possible that manufacturers might have over-estimated demand, and produced too many!Thinkpad4by3 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 14, 2019 9:25 pmmSATA wasn't ever really TOO popular so the chance of having large stocks in a warehouse is small. There are cheap chinese mSATA drives that you could use instead.
But this is all idle speculation. Only time will tell.
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
There are only a handful of laptop models with mSATA slots, most of them released between 2011 and 2012 (maybe up to 2013). So there's not much impetus for manufacturing mSATA SSDs.
Then again, at least Samsung EVO mSATA SSDs are available. M.2 2242 SATA SSDs have it worse, as none of the big brands (Samsung, Crucial, Sandisk) make them; of the ones I've seen in Amazon, Transcend is the only brand I recognize.
Planned Purchase: T480s i5-8350 FHD Touch
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E
Impulse Buy: Thinkpad not named for safety reasons
RIP: X220 4291-C91 X61 7676-A24 760XD-U9E
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
Coming back on this, I acquired a hard drive caddy for the DVD/CD space, but have now acquired a newish 1TB drive from a defunct Apple MacBook. After a full format it seems to work fine.
So that will go in the caddy. Looking again at the mSATA drives, it appears that an 860 Evo 500GB is not much more expensive than a standard SATA Evo of the same spec. Is there any reason why the mSATA should be slower than the standard SATA SSD? I read somewhere that it was, but I don't know why.
If it's not, or if the difference is small, I will buy one and clone the existing HD and boot from the mSATA. Then when funds permit I will perhaps upgrade the HD to an SSD. If I need the space.
So that will go in the caddy. Looking again at the mSATA drives, it appears that an 860 Evo 500GB is not much more expensive than a standard SATA Evo of the same spec. Is there any reason why the mSATA should be slower than the standard SATA SSD? I read somewhere that it was, but I don't know why.
If it's not, or if the difference is small, I will buy one and clone the existing HD and boot from the mSATA. Then when funds permit I will perhaps upgrade the HD to an SSD. If I need the space.
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
The mSATA bus is limited to SATA II(300Mbps) on those machines while the regular port is SATA III(600Mbps).olddog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2019 4:49 pmComing back on this, I acquired a hard drive caddy for the DVD/CD space, but have now acquired a newish 1TB drive from a defunct Apple MacBook. After a full format it seems to work fine.
So that will go in the caddy. Looking again at the mSATA drives, it appears that an 860 Evo 500GB is not much more expensive than a standard SATA Evo of the same spec. Is there any reason why the mSATA should be slower than the standard SATA SSD? I read somewhere that it was, but I don't know why.
If it's not, or if the difference is small, I will buy one and clone the existing HD and boot from the mSATA. Then when funds permit I will perhaps upgrade the HD to an SSD. If I need the space.
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.
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.
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
I have been trawling the net for hours to find whether there is any observable difference in practice. A number of people say that any difference wouldn't be noticeable, or would be only barely noticeable, but I haven't found anybody to say that they have tried both.
I have two T61s in daily use, and one has an EVO in it, the other a 320 HDD (but more RAM and a faster chip). Both boot up quickly and in fact there is not much difference between them. The W530 already boots up much more quickly than the T430, but it has twice the RAM and a much faster CPU. Both have HDDs at the moment. And both are much, much, much slower than the much older T61s because the former are currently on Win 10, and the T61s on Puppy Linux.
My oldest TP is a recently acquired X30 using Win XP, and it boots up more quickly than the hugely more powerful Win 10 machines. Microsoft is not exactly making progress.
Thanks for your input, 4x3.
I have two T61s in daily use, and one has an EVO in it, the other a 320 HDD (but more RAM and a faster chip). Both boot up quickly and in fact there is not much difference between them. The W530 already boots up much more quickly than the T430, but it has twice the RAM and a much faster CPU. Both have HDDs at the moment. And both are much, much, much slower than the much older T61s because the former are currently on Win 10, and the T61s on Puppy Linux.
My oldest TP is a recently acquired X30 using Win XP, and it boots up more quickly than the hugely more powerful Win 10 machines. Microsoft is not exactly making progress.
Thanks for your input, 4x3.
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Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
Actually quite the contrary, I find Win8 and Win10 to boot faster than any other operating system before it. Also note Win10 is DESIGNED for SSDs, and when you give Win10 a SSD, it will boot the machine in around 10 seconds. RAM and CPU should have little effect on boot speed, I've actually found more RAM to slow down boot speeds, granted the test was on an old Dell Dimension, but still an observation.olddog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2019 6:57 pmI have been trawling the net for hours to find whether there is any observable difference in practice. A number of people say that any difference wouldn't be noticeable, or would be only barely noticeable, but I haven't found anybody to say that they have tried both.
I have two T61s in daily use, and one has an EVO in it, the other a 320 HDD (but more RAM and a faster chip). Both boot up quickly and in fact there is not much difference between them. The W530 already boots up much more quickly than the T430, but it has twice the RAM and a much faster CPU. Both have HDDs at the moment. And both are much, much, much slower than the much older T61s because the former are currently on Win 10, and the T61s on Puppy Linux.
My oldest TP is a recently acquired X30 using Win XP, and it boots up more quickly than the hugely more powerful Win 10 machines. Microsoft is not exactly making progress.
Thanks for your input, 4x3.
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.
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.
Re: Best HDD configuration for W530
More RAM slows booting? Interesting. Any ideas why it should? I would have thought that if anything it would speed it up, or else make no difference.
Presently I have old machines running W95, Win 7, and Vista, and all are quicker than the much more powerful T430 and W530 with Win 10.
But when I have time to clone the disk I shall try the SSD in the W530. It sounds as though I need to forget mSATA for booting.
Presently I have old machines running W95, Win 7, and Vista, and all are quicker than the much more powerful T430 and W530 with Win 10.
But when I have time to clone the disk I shall try the SSD in the W530. It sounds as though I need to forget mSATA for booting.
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